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Meet the team
A lot of paint has been sprayed over the body work of a lot of cars at the Warkworth workshop of Edmonds & Mason over the past half century.
Commenting on the business’ longevity, founder Ian Edmonds, 77, says laconically, “We must be doing something right!”
When Edmonds started the panel shop in Woodcocks Road, cows grazed next door on the Morrison farm.
“I was told the business wouldn’t survive because I was too far out of town,” he says.
His contemporaries in the industrial area were plumber Rod Jones, concrete plant operator Al Mason, Dennis Sullivan’s tank business, Jamie and Peter Thompson’s crane business, Booker and Whitmore Builders, McKinnon Builders and Ron Pearce Sheetmetal. Bruce Quinn ran the lunchbar and drainlayer Ivor Jones came along a few years later.
The name Mason was added above the roller doors nearly 40 years ago, when Wayne Mason joined as a partner.
“I first worked for Ian after completing an apprenticeship in Wellsford,” Mason says. “After five years I went into the commercial fishing industry, then returned to take up the partnership.”
Now 63, Wayne still works at the workshop, while Ian looks after final insurance quotes and invoicing from home in Kaipara Flats. He admits the new technology in cars has made him shy away from the tools.
“The amount of technology just in a windscreen means we have to keep the car keys behind a wall while we remove the windscreen so they can’t talk to each other.
“When I started as a coachbuilder there was a sewing machine in the workshop to sew the hood linings, and door frames were wooden. We made everything including the door panels and roofs. It was all hammer, filing and lead work – no bogging back then.”
The workshop has grown extensively during the past 50 years. Originally just under 100sqm, it now spreads over nearly 1000sqm incorporating modern panel and paint facilities, Smith & Smith automotive glazing, and a paint and gas-heated baking facility.
“We’ve handled just about everything over the years, from campervans and cars to trucks, buses, excavators and a long line of vintage vehicles,” Ian says. “Most of the work now is return customers.”
Ian says he knew everyone who drove past the shop in the early days. Warkworth was a small town and there was a lot more trust between businesses and their customers.
“You could charge things up whether you were in Brian Rees’ chemist shop or Richie Hill’s barber shop. Wickham (where the ASB is now) used to roll his carpet out on the street to measure and cut it, and you’d just have to walk around him. When the pub closed at 6pm, everyone headed to Tony’s Restaurant.”
