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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00:0001. Master 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.
00:1802. Merlin has a pair of Chevrolets in stock, and while one of them needs a lot of work,
00:24the other one is a bit of a beauty.
00:2703. This here is quite a rare car. It's one of only a few in the country. It's a 1969
00:32Chevrolet Chevelle SS based on the Chevy Malibu. Unfortunately, the engine in this car isn't
00:38the original engine. What can often happen with American cars, a crate or new factory
00:43engines are put into them, which completely deteriorates the value of a car. This one
00:47has actually had the original 396, 325 brake engine sourced for it, which is what it would
00:52have had originally, and it's been meticulously restored. The car was shipped into the UK
00:58earlier this year.
00:5904. Such 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
01:09sleep at 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
01:18car as well as 100 plus photos, so he really knew what he was getting himself in for. This,
01:23I feel confident in saying, is by far the best one in the country, if not in Europe,
01:27and it's a show winner.
01:2905. With so many ways of selling cars available nowadays, Merlin knows the importance of advertising
01:34in the right places.
01:3506. This is the Chevelle that I've got for sale at the moment. I have chosen to advertise
01:41this on eBay. We're asking 37,500 pounds for that. I feel that at that kind of level, eBay
01:47is an appropriate place to be listing things like that. Again, were this a 375,000 pound
01:53car, eBay would be the last place I'd put it. I have also got it on a lot of American
01:57specific sites, forums, things like that, because a lot of the Americans seen in the
02:01UK are very hot on their weird, quirky forums.
02:0505. If 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
02:14Chevrolet he owned, which he sold to buy this car, looking to restore it with Dad.
02:18Again, that car needed too much work. He decided to sell it privately on eBay, bought this
02:23car in from the States, and it's too good for him. He needs something a bit more roadworthy,
02:28not a trailer queen.
02:3006. As 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
02:40the station wagon, i.e. the estate on the back. It's a 283 Chevy small block engine in there.
02:4507. While it might not be the prettiest car, the vehicle's had something of an interest
02:49in history.
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,
03:06drove it every day for about 15 years. He then decided to race it down a beach, which
03:13is fine if you're going to clean your car afterwards, and let it sit in a yard for four
03:17years afterwards.
03:1808. Perhaps 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.
03:44On the outer seal down here, there's a lot of rust bubbles. What worries me is what's
03:49hiding behind them. The inner seal 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 seal to fix that, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were opening a
04:02huge can of worms. The insides of these tend to just completely rot out. You really are
04:06just relying on the strength of the roof and the body panels to keep the car looking as
04:10it is.
04:1109. It'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
04:24why I'm sitting in it now, but it does still smell in here.
04:28But 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.
04:39You shouldn't always follow your heart in this industry, but we've had some fun with
04:43it. Back in the day, Dad probably would have looked at finishing this off, taking it on
04:48as a project, but the thing is, we've picked up so much business elsewhere of a higher
04:53caliber that we really don't need to be doing stuff like this anymore. It is more a labour
04:58of love when it comes to stuff like this. There isn't a huge amount of cash in it, and
05:02at the end of the day, he's trying to run a business.
05:04So what does Merlin plan to do with it now?
05:07It 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 pleasantly
05:30surprised over the years as to how big the hot rod and American scene has grown over
05:33here. Someone's really got their work cut out here, but it's going to make quite a cool
05:37wagon once it's done. It really just needs a lot of love from a welder.
05:42We're going to ship it on for four, and I think there's enough room left in that price
05:46for somebody to take it on and see a profit out of it once they've restored it.
05:50Next time on Rasta Riches...
05:52I'm certainly not going to put a 2,000 pound pressing on there in the wrong place, because
05:56I know what they should look like, and they certainly shouldn't look like that.