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;17;00 00;01;22;00 On a daily basis they work on some of the
00:22 most desirable cars in the world.
00:24 00;01;23;00 00;01;26;00 As much as 15 million for some of the
00:27 top end Ferraris, my own personal insurance should go up as I touch it.
00:32 But Lance had a more humble start to his career.
00:34 00;01;30;00 00;01;37;00 Give it another try.
00:37 They stopped making idiots like me about 30 years ago. Now I'm a traditional panel beater,
00:42 manufacturing panels, not crash repair.
00:44 00;01;38;00 00;01;42;00 I worked at the Rolls Royce coachbuilder
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;01;52;00 00;01;56;00 Helping to manage the business is Lance's
01:05 son Merlin, who also runs his own classic car dealership, Duke of London.
01:10 00;02;00;00 00;02;04;00 And this is a Merlin.
01:12 00;02;05;00 00;02;08;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.
01:19 00;02;10;00 00;02;14;00 I started buying and selling cars when I was 11. I found a gap
01:23 in the market with eBay. I was buying heaps of junk, getting them through an MOT and flogging
01:27 them on.
01:28 00;02;14;00 00;02;21;00 I went into the city for a while, despite doing quite well, I decided
01:32 that I had to come back and do something with cars again.
01:35 00;02;21;00 00;02;26;00 And Merlin's modern approach perfectly compliments Lance's traditional
01:39 craftsmanship.
01:40 00;02;26;00 00;02;30;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 salesman
01:53 salary job to something like this if I didn't have the confidence in our relationship.
01:57 00;02;30;00 00;02;37;00 The father and son combinations pay in 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.
02:17 00;02;45;00 00;02;50;00 And they look at a rare Aston Martin with engine trouble.
02:24 00;02;50;00 00;03;00;00 Yeah, I don't think this screwdriver's going to cure that.
02:32 00;03;00;00 00;03;04;00 Looking slightly less glamorous at the moment is another Aston Martin
02:37 project.
02:38 00;03;04;00 00;03;08;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. And this thing here has cost us a quarter of a million pounds. Our
02:52 one finished would be just over a million pounds. It would be a faithful replica of
02:57 a Zagato.
02:58 00;03;08;00 00;03;22;00 Clearly Lance and Merlin love the cars they have the chance to work
03:02 on.
03:02 00;03;22;00 00;03;29;00 At the end of the day it's a piece of art as well. I've got a huge
03:06 amount of responsibility when it's in my care.
03:08 00;03;29;00 00;03;35;00 These race cars and one-offs, you may own them but you're a custodian
03:12 of them. And I'm sort of blessed to be able to be a day custodian, shall we say. I look
03:16 after them for the day. I get to drive them. I get to smell them, recreate features that
03:21 have been lost in them.
03:23 00;03;35;00 00;03;40;00 The name I coined after a couple of drinks one night. My ex-wife used
03:28 to work for Vogue and as a result I used to go to some very swanky parties with all these
03:32 sort of dowager duchess types. And they would all ask, "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." "Oh, really, dear?" And they would often leave it at that. But
03:45 it was just a little joke I had going on.
03:47 00;03;40;00 00;03;50;00 Once I'd started up on my own, I was with the Romance of Rust.
03:50 It applies if you think about it to these cars because there's a great romantic notion.
03:55 They're often substitutes for children, wives, you name it, baby.
03:59 00;03;50;00 00;04;00;00 With the current state of the market, things are looking good for
04:03 Lance and Merlin.
04:04 00;04;00;00 00;04;05;00 That's a car that's about done gold for the last two years, and
04:07 they don't seem to be slowing down.
04:08 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;05;00 00;04;10;00 It doesn't seem like work. I sort of pinch myself sometimes. I'm
04:25 being paid to do something that I love.
04:32 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;10;00 00;04;22;00 There's a big scratch here in the glass.
04:42 If you took it out and broke it, we're in trouble here. It's nightmarish if that happens.
04:47 00;04;22;00 00;04;30;00
04:48 [Music]
04:48 (upbeat music)
04:50 (dramatic music)
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