MEET the father-and-son car restorers who are turning rust to riches by buying, selling and fixing some of the world's rarest cars. Lance, 52, a former panel beater for Rolls-Royce, is the go-to guy for bespoke classic car restoration - while Merlin, 20, specialises in sales and acquisition. Some of the rarest cars treated at their businesses in Brentford, west London, can be worth upwards of $19 million. This week Merlin has two Chevrolets in stock, and while one is barely roadworthy, the other, a 1969 Chevelle, is one of the best examples in the country.
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MotorTranscript
00:00Master Craftsman Lance McCormack owns one of Britain's best classic car restoration
00:05businesses, Romance of Rust. Helping him manage it is his son Merlin, the cutting-edge salesman,
00:12who also runs his own classic car dealership. Together they turn Rust to riches. Merlin
00:19has a pair of Chevrolets in stock, and while one of them needs a lot of work, the other
00:24one is a bit of a beauty.
00:26This here is quite a rare car. It's one of only a few in the country. It's a 1969 Chevrolet
00:32Chevelle SS, based on the Chevy Malibu. Unfortunately, the engine in this car isn't the original engine.
00:39What can often happen with American cars are crate or new factory engines are put into them,
00:44which completely deteriorates the value of a car. This one's actually had the original
00:48396, 325 brake engine sourced for it, which is what it would have had originally, and it's
00:53been meticulously restored. The car was shipped into the UK earlier this year.
00:59Such a prize inspired a risky buying strategy on the part of its current owner.
01:04This car was actually bought blind by its owner. However, there are ways around losing sleep
01:09at night when you do these things. He paid for an independent inspection to be carried
01:13out in America, which provided him with a 350-point checklist of the condition of the car, as well
01:18as 100-plus photos. So he really knew what he was getting himself in for. But this, I
01:23feel confident in saying, is by far the best one in the country, if not in Europe, and it's
01:27a show winner.
01:29With so many ways of selling cars available nowadays, Merlin knows the importance of advertising
01:34in the right places.
01:36This is the Chevelle that I've got for sale at the moment. I have chosen to advertise this
01:41on eBay. We're asking £37,500 for that. I feel that, you know, at that kind of level,
01:46eBay's an appropriate place to be listing things like that. Again, were this £375,000
01:53car, eBay would be the last place I'd put it. I have also got it on a lot of American-specific
01:58sites, forums, things like that, because a lot of the Americans seen in the UK are very
02:02hot on their weird, quirky forums.
02:06If the car is as good as Merlin says it is, why is the owner selling it?
02:10The bloke who owns this car actually came to me earlier in the year with a previous Chevrolet
02:14he owned, which he sold to buy this car, looking to restore it with Dad. Again, that car needed
02:20too much work. He decided to sell it privately on eBay, bought this car in from the States,
02:24and it's too good for him. He needs something a bit more road-worthy, not a trailer queen.
02:30As well as the Chevelle, Merlin also has another Chevrolet on his books.
02:34Here we've got a 1960 Chevrolet Nomad. It's based on the 60 Impala. The Nomad refers to the
02:40station wagon, i.e. the estate on the back. It's a 283 Chevy small-block engine in there.
02:45While it might not be the prettiest car, the vehicle's had something of an interest in
02:49history.
02:50The guy who I got it from had seen it in New York in the 80s. He fell in love with it
02:54and he couldn't afford it. He came back over to the UK and was driving around Yorkshire
02:58one day with a friend, and the same car was sitting on a forecourt of just a local car
03:02dealer. He couldn't believe it. He had to have it. So, lo and behold, he bought it.
03:06He drove it every day for about 15 years. He then decided to race it down a beach, which
03:12is fine if you're going to clean your car afterwards, and let it sit in a yard for four years afterwards.
03:18Perhaps unsurprisingly, such treatment has had an adverse effect on the bodywork.
03:23On this car, the rust is indisguisable. You can see here around the rear wheel arch, it's
03:29quite literally coming off in your hand. That's an MOT fail beyond anything else. It's unsafe,
03:35both to pedestrians and to whoever's in the car. The engine is running beautifully. We've
03:40just overhauled the brakes for whoever buys it because it wasn't safe to even move. On
03:44the outer sill down here, there's a lot of rust bubbles. What worries me is what's hiding
03:49behind them. The inner sill is arguably one of the most vital parts towards the structure
03:54of the car. Without it, the car could quite literally snap in half. You'd have to remove
03:58the outer sill to fix that, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were opening a huge
04:02can of worms. The insides of these tend to just completely rot out. You really are just
04:06relying on the strength of the roof and the body panels to keep the car looking as it is.
04:11It's not just the exterior that leaves a lot to be desired.
04:14The interior itself has been home to a family of rats before we picked it up for about seven
04:20years, so they've gone to town on the place. We have disinfected the whole thing, hence why
04:24I'm sitting in it now, but it does still smell in here.
04:27But being in such poor condition meant it was a bit of a bargain, and one Merlin couldn't
04:33resist.
04:34We picked this up for three grand. It was something that appealed to me more than anything. You
04:39shouldn't always follow your heart in this industry, but, you know, we've had some fun
04:42with it. Back in the day, Dad probably would have looked at finishing this off, taking it
04:47on as a project, but the thing is, we've picked up so much business elsewhere of a higher caliber
04:53that we really don't need to be doing stuff like this anymore. It is more a labor of love
04:58when it comes to stuff like this. There isn't a huge amount of cash in it, and at the end
05:02of the day, he's trying to run a business.
05:04So what does Merlin plan to do with it now?
05:06It doesn't look quite as bad as it is, and that's saying something because it doesn't
05:11look great. Everything from the waist down has gone. I've taken this on as a real project
05:16for someone who wants something to keep them busy over winter. It's going to keep them
05:21very busy. There's a lot of people who want it for a rat rod or a surf wagon or something.
05:26You wouldn't think necessarily there's a huge market for that over here, but I've been
05:29pleasantly surprised over the years as to how big the hot rod an American scene has grown
05:33over here. Someone's really got their work cut out here, but it's going to make it quite
05:36a cool wagon once it's done. It really just needs a lot of love from a welder. We're going
05:42to ship it on for four. I think there's enough room left in that price for somebody to take
05:47it on and see a profit out of it once they've restored it.
05:51Next time on Rust to Riches...
05:52I'm certainly not going to put a £2000 pressing on there in the wrong place because I know
05:56what they should look like and they certainly shouldn't look like that.