00:00000001 Master craftsman Lance McCormack owns one
00:05of Britain's best classic car restoration businesses, Romance of Rust. Helping him manage
00:11it is his son Merlin the cutting edge salesman, who also runs his own classic car dealership.
00:17Together they turn rust to riches. On a daily basis they work on some of the most desirable
00:23cars in the world.
00:24000001 As much as $15 million for some of the top
00:27in Ferraris. My own personal insurance should go up as I touch it.
00:32But Lance had a more humble start to his career.
00:35Give it another try. They stopped making idiots like me about 30
00:40years ago. Now I'm a traditional panel beater, manufacturing panels, not crash repair. I
00:45worked at the Rolls Royce coachbuilders called Mulliner Park Ward. So it's a tragedy that
00:49the skills have gone and almost every metal worker that I know from there has either retired
00:54or got out of the trade. And I just kept going. That's all I really knew. So from being
00:58a dodo to being a go-to man for bespoke metal work.
01:03Helping to manage the business is Lance's son Merlin, who also runs his own classic
01:08car dealership, Duke of London. And this is a Merlin.
01:13I've been around Dad's business since I was born. He used to sort of babysit us while
01:16we were still in our cot and while he was at work. I started buying and selling cars
01:21when I was 11. I found a gap in the market with eBay. I was sort of buying heaps of junk,
01:26getting them through an MOT and flogging them on. I went into the city for a while. Despite
01:31doing quite well, I decided that I had to come back and do something with cars again.
01:35And Merlin's modern approach perfectly complements Lance's traditional craftsmanship.
01:40I've sold three cars on Instagram. I've sold a couple of cars through Facebook. I've managed
01:44those pages as well as I managed my website. It's had its ups and downs over the years,
01:49but I think I wouldn't have taken the leap from a full-time, salaried job to something
01:54like this if I didn't have the confidence in our relationship.
01:57The father and son combination is paying dividends. And now the pair have a two-year waiting list
02:03of customers. Their current projects include this amazing Ferrari.
02:07It's a very important, historic car. And this car, at some point in its life, would have
02:12been worth tens of thousands. Now we're talking about ten million plus.
02:20And they look at a rare Aston Martin with engine trouble.
02:30Yeah, I don't think this screwdriver's going to cure that.
02:33Looking slightly less glamorous at the moment is another Aston Martin project.
02:38This is an Aston Martin DB4 shell showing the principle of superleggera. This one's in for a hell of a lot of work.
02:45We're doing a Zagato replica on an original Aston chassis here. And this thing here has
02:50cost us a quarter of a million pounds. Our one finished would be just over a million
02:54pounds. It would be a faithful replica of a Zagato.
02:59Clearly, Lance and Merlin love the cars they have the chance to work on.
03:03At the end of the day, it's a piece of art as well. I've got a huge amount of responsibility
03:08when it's in my care.
03:09These race cars and one-offs, you may own them, but you're a custodian of them. And
03:13I'm sort of blessed to be able to be a day custodian, shall we say. I look after them
03:17for the day. I get to drive them. I get to smell them, recreate features that have been
03:22lost in them.
03:23The name I coined after a couple of drinks one night. My ex-wife used to work for Vogue.
03:29And as a result, I used to go to some very swanky parties with all these sort of dowager
03:33duchess types. And they would all ask, well, what do you do? And rather than just say,
03:37I work at Rolls-Royce. I'm a metal worker. I'm a restorer. I say, I'm with the Romance
03:41of Rust. Oh, really, dear? And they would often leave it at that. But it was just a
03:45little joke I had going on.
03:47Once I'd started up on my own, I was with the Romance of Rust. It applies, if you think
03:51about it, to these cars, because there's a great romantic notion. They're often substitutes
03:57for children, wives, you name it, baby.
04:00With the current state of the market, things are looking good for Lance and Merlin.
04:04That's a car that's about done gold for the last two years, and they don't seem to be
04:08slowing down.
04:09This is looking very rosy. We've never been busier.
04:11But with all this demand for restoration and sales, Lance and Merlin need to expand rapidly
04:16to keep up. And despite the pressures brought by success, the McCormacks are passionate
04:21about what they do.
04:22It doesn't seem like work. I sort of pinch myself sometimes that I'm being paid to do
04:26something that I love.
04:32Next time on Rust to Riches, the Ferrari's windscreen needs resealing. But work on such
04:37an expensive car is never without its worries.
04:41There's a big scratch here in the glass.
04:43If you took it out and broke it, we're in trouble here. It's nightmarish if that happens.
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