Luxury Finishes has been trading for over fifteen years and five years ago relocated to Yatala, Queensland. The business is run by Joe Cooper and he has many years of experience in the automotive restoration industry with a trade background as a panel beater and spray painter. Joes philosophy is we are genuine motor vehicle enthusiasts, which I believe should be the only kind of person working on such vehicles. Without a true passion for the vehicles concerned you cannot expect to receive the level of excellence which I demand from my workers and expect to give to my customers.
Excellence achieved is always a team effort.
The team have a passion for cars and will perform body and paint work to the highest standards on customers cars. They do not do mechanical work but are able to perform anything a customer requires from paint stripping, modifications and customisation, concourse restorations to spray painting and rust repairs.
Luxury Finishes have their own soda and garnet blasting facility with a large dedicated room for this purpose. They are currently soda blasting Harley Davidson crankcases and have just finished soda blasting the paint off a set of 1927 Chevrolet wood spoke wheels and a Rolls Royce grill. The soda blasting technique allows them to take individual layers of paint off with no damage and for sensitive materials like wood and fibreglass the end result is always a very happy customer.
They have a lot of experience in working with fibreglass bodied cars and have restored a number of Corvettes. There are not a lot of restoration shops prepared to tackle a fibreglass bodied car but at Luxury Finishes they can strip and rebuild anything in this material.
The workshop is huge and can hold up to twenty cars and is fitted out with a number of rotisseries, two hoists, the blasting booth, a large nine metre by five metre dedicated spray booth, numerous folding machines, guillotines, work bays and two open faced booths. The workshop has had many classics pass through it including the usual Ford Mustangs, VW, Chargers, Valiant convertible and a 1947 Flying 15. Among the cars currently in the shop is a 1950 Chev having a three and half inch chop, a 1952 Dodge Kingsway, two GT Falcons receiving full concourse restorations and an S series Valiant.
There are five staff that are all hands on in the workshop performing the restorations. Luxury Finishes does not do smash repairs unless a previous client requires this service. Joe has a reputation in the market and amongst his own team as being extremely pedantic and fussy about how a job is performed and all the team take great pride in doing the best job possible to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction and perform a restoration that will age well into the future.
The workshop is run in a very businesslike manner and all jobs are performed in stages with consultation with the client. This allows the client to understand what is being worked on at any point of time and through this process there is an expansive photo library taken of each car. At the end of the restoration each client receives a full dossier of the restoration on disk which is supported by a full breakdown of the work performed from their computer system. Every hour that is worked on a customers car is allocated and put into the computer system which allows a customer to come in and see the progress of their car and if they want to know where the time and money is going they can get a full record from the system supported by the images of the work carried out.
Luxury Finishes also project manage all aspects of a restoration and may send some components out to trusted affiliates, such as the chassis for driveline upgrades. At managements discretion they may charge a storage fee for any client whose car sits in the workshop for over six weeks due to a lack of funds as they realise they are running a business and want to ensure a professional job in the appropriate time frame.
Joe has a number of classic cars including a couple of Valiant VG/VF hardtops, a 52 Dodge, numerous motor bikes and a S series Valiant. The team members also have a number of classics and treat each clients car like it was their own.
If you require a professional restoration you can drop by the workshop between 8.00am and 5.00pm Monday through Friday to see the quality of workmanship the team can provide for your project or you can call and discuss your requirements with Joe over the phone.
