00:00 00;01;10;12 00;01;14;22 Master craftsman Lance McCormack owns
00:05 one of Britain's best classic car restoration businesses, Romance of Rust. Helping him manage
00:11 it is his son Merlin, the cutting edge salesman, who also runs his own classic car dealership.
00:17 Together they turn rust to riches.
00:19 00;01;20;22 00;01;27;22 On a daily basis they work on some of the
00:22 most desirable cars in the world.
00:24 00;01;29;22 00;01;31;22 As much as 15 million for some of
00:26 the top end Ferraris. My own personal insurance should go up as I touch it.
00:31 00;01;33;03 00;01;38;03 But Lance had a more humble start to
00:33 his career.
00:34 00;01;40;03 00;01;44;03 Give it another try.
00:36 00;01;45;03 00;01;48;03 They stopped making idiots like me about 30 years ago. Now I'm
00:40 a traditional panel beater, manufacturing panels, not crash repair.
00:43 00;01;49;03 00;01;52;03 I worked at the Rolls Royce coachbuilder's
00:47 called Mulliner Park Ward. So it's a tragedy that the skills have gone and almost every
00:52 metal worker that I know from there has either retired or got out of the trade and I just
00:56 kept going. That's all I really knew. So from being a dodo to being a go-to man for bespoke
01:01 metal work.
01:02 00;02;00;00 00;02;05;00 Helping to manage the business is Lance's
01:04 son Merlin, who also runs his own classic car dealership, Duke of London.
01:09 00;02;07;00 00;02;10;00 And this is a Merlin.
01:12 00;02;11;00 00;02;14;00 I've been around dad's business since I was born. He used to babysit
01:16 us while we were still in our cot and while he was at work. I started buying and selling
01:20 cars when I was 11. I found a gap in the market with eBay. I was sort of buying heaps of junk
01:26 and getting them through an MOT and flogging them on. I went into the city for a while
01:30 despite doing quite well. I decided that I had to come back and do something with cars
01:34 again.
01:35 00;02;14;00 00;02;21;00 And Merlin's modern approach perfectly complements Lance's traditional
01:39 craftsmanship.
01:40 00;02;21;00 00;02;26;00 I've sold three cars on Instagram. I've sold a couple of cars through
01:43 Facebook. I've managed those pages as well as I managed my website. It's had its ups
01:48 and downs over the years but I think I wouldn't have taken the leap from a full-time salaried
01:53 job to something like this if I didn't have the confidence in our relationship.
01:57 00;02;26;00 00;02;37;00 The father and son combination is paying dividends and now the
02:01 pair have a two-year waiting list of customers. Their current projects include this amazing
02:06 Ferrari.
02:07 00;02;37;00 00;02;45;00 It's a very important historic car and this car at some point in
02:11 its life would have been worth tens of thousands. Now we're talking about ten million plus.
02:16 00;02;45;00 00;02;50;00 And they look at a rare Aston Martin with engine trouble.
02:23 00;02;50;00 00;03;00;00 Yep, I don't think this screwdriver's going to cure that.
02:34 Looking slightly less glamorous at the moment is another Aston Martin project.
02:37 00;03;00;00 00;03;05;00 This is an Aston Martin DB4 shell showing the principle of superleggera.
02:42 This one's in for a hell of a lot of work. We're doing a Zagato replica on an original
02:48 Aston chassis here.
02:49 00;03;05;00 00;03;10;00 And this thing here has cost us a quarter of a million pounds.
02:52 Our one finished would be just over a million pounds. It would be a faithful replica of
02:56 a Zagato.
02:57 00;03;10;00 00;03;17;00 Clearly, Lance and Merlin love the cars they have the chance to work
03:02 on.
03:03 00;03;17;00 00;03;21;00 At the end of the day, it's a piece of art as well. I've got a huge
03:04 amount of responsibility when it's in my care.
03:05 00;03;21;00 00;03;25;00 These race cars and one-offs, you may own them, but you're a custodian
03:06 of them.
03:07 00;03;25;00 00;03;29;00 And I'm sort of blessed to be able to be a day custodian, shall we
03:16 say.
03:17 00;03;29;00 00;03;33;00 I look after them for the day. I get to drive them. I get to smell
03:19 them, recreate features that have been lost in them.
03:22 00;03;33;00 00;03;37;00 The name I coined after a couple of drinks one night.
03:26 00;03;37;00 00;03;41;00 My ex-wife used to work for Vogue, and as a result, I used to go to
03:30 some very swanky parties with all these sort of dowager duchess types.
03:33 00;03;41;00 00;03;45;00 And they would all ask, "Well, what do you do?" And rather than
03:36 just say, "I work at Rolls-Royce. I'm a metal worker," or a restorer, I'd say, "I'm with
03:40 the Romance of Rust."
03:41 00;03;45;00 00;03;50;00 "Oh, really, dear?" You know, and they would often leave it at
03:44 that, but it was just a little joke I had going on.
03:46 00;03;50;00 00;03;54;00 Once I'd started up on my own, I was with the Romance of Rust,
03:50 you know. It applies, if you think about it, to these cars, because there's a great romantic
03:54 notion.
03:55 00;03;54;00 00;03;57;00 They're often substitutes for children, wives, you name it, baby.
03:59 00;03;57;00 00;04;00;00 With the current state of the market, things are looking good for
04:02 Lance and Merlin.
04:03 00;04;00;00 00;04;05;00 "That's a car that's about done gold for the last two years, and
04:06 they don't seem to be slowing down."
04:08 00;04;05;00 00;04;08;00 "The business is looking very rosy. We've never been busier."
04:11 But with all this demand for restoration and sales, Lance and Merlin need to expand rapidly
04:16 to keep up. And despite the pressures brought by success, the McCormacks are passionate
04:21 about what they do.
04:22 00;04;08;00 00;04;15;00 "It doesn't seem like work. I sort of pinch myself sometimes, that
04:25 I'm being paid to do something that I love."
04:31 With time on raster itches, the Ferrari's windscreen needs resealing. But work on such
04:37 an expensive car is never without its worries.
04:39 00;04;15;00 00;04;21;00 "There's a big scratch here in the glass."
04:42 00;04;21;00 00;04;25;00 "If you took it out and broke it, we're in trouble here. It's
04:45 nightmarish if that happens."
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