Restored Classic Holdens
by Margaret Wenham (From: The Courier-Mail May 18, 2010)
FJ Holden restored by young tradie (Pic: Peter Wallis Source: The Courier-Mail)
ALL HER OWN WORK: Anita Boughen restored her FJ Holden and won a gold medal for her skills at the tradie Olympics.
SHE’s beautiful and bubbly, with an infectious laugh and Anita Boughen just happens to be the best young auto electrician in Australia. The 21-year-old from Minden, west of Brisbane, has the gold medal to prove it, having beaten the best and brightest in Australia at the 2010 WorldSkills National Competition – the young tradies’ Olympics – last week.
“I won by six points, getting 94.2 points out of a possible 100, including two perfect scores,” Ms Boughen said yesterday. “I was blown away by that. I was so excited.”
The young woman, who “just loves” her work, is hoping she’ll have the opportunity to go for the world title at the international WorldSkills competition in London next year.
The field has been tagged by the automotive industry as having a “high priority demand” status, with a March 2010 Queensland Auto Skills Alliance automotive industry training report recording there are currently just 170 people across the state undertaking automotive electrical technology apprenticeships.
QASA’s Paul Kulpa said there’d been a slight increase in the number of women taking on automotive trades.
Ms Boughen said she’d grown uptinkering with cars and along the way had restored her own FJ Holden.