Crash Damaged Classic Porsche Gets Metal Makeover - Rust To Riches - Episode 6 I RIDICULOUS RIDES
MEET the father-and-son car restorers who turn rust to riches by buying, selling and fixing some of rarest cars in the world. This week Lance's metalworking skills are being tested by a crash-damaged 1960s Porche which has been stripped back to bare metal by its owner. Merlin has taken on a 1984 Mercedes 380SL - and reveals the pros and cons of buying cars on the internet.
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00:00 00;01;10;12 00;01;12;12 Master craftsman Lance McCormack owns
00:02 one of Britain's best classic car restoration businesses, Romance of Rust. Helping him manage
00:08 it is his son Merlin, the cutting edge salesman, who also runs his own classic car dealership.
00:14 Together they turn rust to riches.
00:17 00;01;12;12 00;01;22;22 Lance is one of the country's leading
00:20 metalwork and restoration experts, and today he's working on a classic Porsche that's seen
00:25 better days.
00:26 00;01;22;22 00;01;29;22 This is a '61, '62 Porsche 356
00:31 Coupe. This one's in for a customer. I'm doing all the hard metalwork for him. He's stripped
00:37 it. I've got to put a new nose section on. But these are so popular now, and they at
00:41 least have good value about them. I mean, this finishes about 80 or 90.
00:45 00;01;39;00 00;01;44;00 If I were buying one of these, I would
00:47 be inclined to buy a restoration project from California or Texas. That way you haven't
00:52 got the rust that's got into its very soul.
00:54 00;01;44;00 00;01;50;00 If you get a car from a dry state, the
00:56 bodies then, I mean, my California car, we stripped it down, and there's very little
01:02 rust on it at all. There's some damage from racing, but it was a pleasure to work on then.
01:07 Whereas this one has been through the wars.
01:09 00;01;50;00 00;02;00;00 Now it's stripped to bare metal.
01:12 It's showing signs of its history, warts and all. We've got traces of race history crashing.
01:19 This is high here. This was too close, so they bashed it all back just to get it on
01:23 the road quickly again.
01:24 00;02;00;00 00;02;05;00 It's the fitting of a new part that's revealed how far from the
01:28 original shape the car has become.
01:31 This is a replacement secondhand bonnet from California. So it's dry state, got all the
01:35 correct datums on it. But it shows now quite how bad the front was damaged. The other bonnet
01:42 actually lined up, so the bonnet was in the wrong shape completely.
01:45 00;02;05;00 00;02;15;00 When I put this on, it will be in accordance with the data that's
01:50 around here, the levels, the clearances, the fit and finish. These were campaigned. You
01:54 can see, it's not just about the rust on it. This has had several bad accidents. I'll take
01:59 care of all that. Once the front's off and I've made it weak, I'll use a hydraulic device
02:04 to push this across before I even think about putting a new panel on. I'm certainly not
02:08 going to put a 2,000 pound pressing on there in the wrong place. Given the chance with
02:12 my hand and my eye and my history with these 356s, I know what they should look like. They
02:17 certainly shouldn't look like that.
02:18 00;02;15;00 00;02;28;00 While Lance contemplates his latest restoration challenge, Merlin has
02:25 been expanding his stock of cars to sell.
02:28 00;02;28;00 00;02;33;00 A week ago I bought this. It's a 1984 Mercedes 380 SL of the R107
02:35 Mercedes chassis. It's a great little car. It runs fantastically.
02:38 00;02;33;00 00;02;39;00 Though an advocate of using modern technology in his classic car
02:42 business, Merlin is also aware of the pitfalls of the internet.
02:46 00;02;39;00 00;02;45;00 I actually found this car on eBay. It had been up there a few times.
02:51 To anyone who doesn't know any better, it's a presentable car. When I saw the car and
02:56 pulled it apart, we both knew then why it hadn't sold.
02:59 00;02;45;00 00;02;50;00 The danger of the internet is a lot of cars out there are bought blind.
03:04 You really can't tell what a car's like without seeing it in the flesh.
03:08 00;02;50;00 00;02;57;00 I have so many people coming to me telling me their car's worth
03:11 so much and asking me to sell it for even more because they've bought it on the internet
03:14 and therefore it must be worth more. It's nonsense. People need to get a grip and the
03:19 reality of it is unless you've seen the car in the flesh, you're taking a huge, huge risk.
03:23 00;02;57;00 00;03;00;00 He was able to call on Lance's expertise and knowledge of these
03:26 cars to predict exactly what might be wrong with this one.
03:29 00;03;00;00 00;03;05;00 Dad said to me, "He's done plenty of these. He knows where they're
03:33 going to go. Lo and behold, we've done a bit more further investigation into this car and
03:37 all the places he's predicted will have gone have gone."
03:40 00;03;05;00 00;03;10;00 The rear arches are famous for rusting out on these 107s. These
03:44 have been done to a fairly atrocious standard. I don't know if you can see down here the
03:49 ripple effect we've got here and it hasn't helped somebody who's scraped it as well.
03:55 They need to be completely stripped back to bare metal and even probably new pattern arches
04:00 fitted. What we do is we weld them in beneath the surface. They get a skimmer filler and
04:05 a nice finish which will eradicate this ripple finish you see before you.
04:09 00;03;10;00 00;03;22;00 So how exactly does Merlin intend to turn a profit from the beleaguered
04:12 Mercedes?
04:13 00;03;22;00 00;03;27;00 I picked the car up for what I think is fair. We're looking at
04:17 spending about two and a half thousand pounds on the paint. I'm then going to market the
04:20 car at about twelve thousand pounds. It's the complete wrong time of year to be selling
04:25 a convertible as far as the public are concerned. What I tend to do first is offer it out to
04:30 other people in the trade or my customers who I know might be interested. Beyond that
04:34 it goes onto online marketing. There's plenty of classic car websites out there. What's
04:38 more likely with this car is I'll send it to auction and see what she makes me.
04:41 [BLANK_AUDIO]