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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MotorTranscript
00:00 00;01;10;12 00;01;12;12 Master craftsman Lance McCormack owns
00:03 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;21;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;21;22 00;01;32;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 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;38;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 bodies then, I mean, my California
00:59 car, we stripped it down, and there's very little rust on it at all. There's some damage
01:04 from racing, but it was a pleasure to work on then. Whereas this one has been through
01:09 the wars.
01:10 00;01;50;00 00;02;00;00 Now it's stripped to bare metal. It's showing signs of its history,
01:15 warts and all. We've got traces of race history crashing. This is high here. This was too
01:21 close, so they bashed it all back just to get it on 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. All the correct
01:36 datums on it. But it shows now quite how bad the front was damaged. The other bonnet actually
01:42 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.
02:00 00;02;15;00 00;02;21;00 Once the front's off and I've made it weak, I'll use a hydraulic
02:04 device to push this across before I even think about putting a new panel on. I'm certainly
02:08 not going to put a 2,000 pound pressing on there in the wrong place.
02:12 00;02;21;00 00;02;29;00 Given the chance with my hand and my eye and my history with these
02:15 356s, I know what they should look like. They certainly shouldn't look like that.
02:19 00;02;29;00 00;02;39;00 While Lance contemplates his latest restoration challenge, Merlin has
02:25 been expanding his stock of cars to sell.
02:28 00;02;39;00 00;02;45;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;45;00 00;02;50;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;50;00 00;02;54;00 I actually found this car on eBay. It had been up there a few times.
02:52 To anyone who doesn't know any better, it's a presentable car.
02:54 00;02;54;00 00;03;00;00 When I saw the car and pulled it apart, we both knew then why
02:59 it hadn't sold.
03:00 00;03;00;00 00;03;04;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;03;04;00 00;03;10;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 bought it on the internet
03:14 and therefore it must be worth more.
03:16 00;03;10;00 00;03;15;00 It's nonsense. People need to get a grip and the reality of it is
03:20 unless you've seen the car in the flesh, you're taking a huge, huge risk.
03:23 00;03;15;00 00;03;21;00 He was able to call on Lance's expertise and knowledge of these
03:27 cars to predict exactly what might be wrong with this one.
03:30 00;03;21;00 00;03;26;00 Dad said to me, "He's done plenty of these. He knows where they're
03:34 going to go. Lo and behold, we've done a bit more further investigation into this car and
03:38 all the places he's predicted will have gone have gone."
03:40 00;03;26;00 00;03;30;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
03:50 ripple effect we've got here and it hasn't helped somebody who's scraped it as well.
03:55 00;03;30;00 00;03;41;00 They need to be completely stripped back to bare metal and even probably
03:59 new pattern arches fitted.
04:00 00;03;41;00 00;03;46;00 What we do is we weld them in beneath the surface. They get a skimmer
04:04 filler and a nice finish which will eradicate this ripple finish you see before you.
04:09 00;03;46;00 00;04;00;00 So how exactly does Merlin intend to turn a profit from the beleaguered
04:13 Mercedes?
04:14 00;04;00;00 00;04;05;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
04:21 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.
04:28 00;04;05;00 00;04;10;00 What I tend to do first is offer it out to other people in the trade
04:31 or my customers who I know might be interested. Beyond that it goes onto online marketing.
04:36 There's plenty of classic car websites out there. What's more likely with this car is
04:40 I'll send it to auction and see what she makes me.
04:41 [BLANK_AUDIO]