PRESQUE ISLE – There’s nothing like fresh sheet metal to make an auto body repair instructor smile.

Bob Collins, an instructor for Northern Maine Community College’s automotive body repair program, is smiling big these days after his program received a $7,100 donation from Griffeth Ford of Caribou and Presque Isle.

The donation includes auto body sheet metal parts such as fenders, doors and hoods for several makes and models of cars. It includes some original Ford parts and various after-market pieces, Collins said Tuesday.

“This is great stuff for the students to use to learn their trade,” Collins said. “It’s a win-win situation. It will benefit both our program and the welding and metal fabrication program in that students in both will have the opportunity to practice using the material.”

The college’s auto body repair program is the only post-secondary program of its kind offered in Maine, and one of only a few offered in the northeastern United States, according to officials, so students from a wide geographic area will be practicing their skills with the donated sheet metal.

The donation worked out to about two pickup truckloads full of parts, which were delivered recently to the auto body repair lab. The last time the program received a gift of parts in large quantity was about 10 years ago when a 48-foot tractor-trailer box of Toyota parts was given to the campus by the Portland Regional Technology Center, through a donation that center received directly from the automaker.

These parts are mostly after-market parts that have accumulated at the local auto sales and services business in the past few years. The overstock was just taking up space, Collins said. When an employee called him up asking if he was interested in the parts, Collins gratefully accepted.

“Most of what we’ll be doing with this is putting dents in panels so students can practice straightening the metal,” Collins said.

Students also will practice welding panels together and painting the auto body parts.

“It gives you some newer sheet metal to work with, as far as being able to repair, cut, weld or straighten something that hasn’t been on the road and repaired three or four times before,” Collins said. “A lot of junk cars have 250,000 to 300,000 miles on them and have been hit several times. This is nice, clean sheet metal to practice on.”