This is a project which sees a number of unregistered and derelict vehicles that are left in public places, impounded by Wagga City Council and handed over to TAFE NSW Wagga's panel beating and spray painting departments for use by apprentices.  

Automotive refinishing apprentice Maddison Ross said these cars give "real world" experiences. 

"It's fantastic and gives us real applications of the paint," she said. 

"It's much easier to colour match on panels that are curved rather than flat ones because you get to see the different angles of the paint. 

"The cars come in and we rub them back and remove any damage, like removing any small dents, put the primer and fillers on and level that out again and put the base on." 

Ms Ross is following in the footsteps of her father and said she hasn't had an issue being surrounded in a male-dominated industry. 

"My dad has been working on cars for a long time and I'm just following in his footsteps and will take over the family business once I get my papers," she said. 

"I haven't had much problems being a female in this industry, people are pretty accepting as long as you're there to get in and do the work." 

Wagga's head of department Ian Chalmers said this project is in line with TAFE NSW's values that prepares students for the workforce. 

"It helps so much to have a real life car that you can pull down and it gives real skills so that students can start their jobs straight away," Mr Chalmers said. 

"It helps greatly to have a real car that's damaged and has different colours and that both the panel beating and painting sessions can work on." 

Mr Chalmers said these cars will most likely never see the road again and will be used multiple times over at the Wagga campus. 

"The cars go through a cycle: downstairs to get repaired and then brought up to get undercoated and painted and then the new class comes back for the next year and we start all over again," he said. 

"Most of the cars here usually don't leave TAFE or they go back to the wreckers for sale of parts." 

This comes at a time when the motor repair industry remains in the midst of a long-running national skills shortage. 

Council's director of community Janice Summerhayes said council has to impound on average 15 to 20 vehicles a year. 

"We know that this is not just benefiting one lot of students, but year after year there will be different skills on those cars and they're off the community streets," she said. 

"TAFE will choose the best ones for teaching purposes and the rest are put out on an expression based interest for other industries to come and collect."