A PAIR of father-and-son car restorers are turning rust to riches by buying, selling and fixing some of the world's rarest cars. Among the classics Lance and Merlin McCormack, have worked on included John Lennon's iconic white 1965 Rolls-Royce Phantom and motor's worth $18.5m plus. Testing their mechanical know-how, Lance and Merlin have found themselves the go-to guys for bespoke classic car restoration. Other rarities to have been treated at their garage in Brentford, West London, include Captain America's shield used in the 2011 blockbuster, and a scratched windscreen of a 1950s Ferrari. Their current project is one for Merlin - pulling his dad and their business into the 21st Century and getting themselves on social networks around the world.
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MotorTranscript
00:00Master Craftsman Lance McCormack owns one of Britain's best classic car restoration
00:08businesses, Romance of Rust. Helping him manage it is his son Merlin, the cutting edge salesman,
00:14who also runs his own classic car dealership. Together they turn Rust to riches. On a daily
00:21basis they work on some of the most desirable cars in the world.
00:24As much as 15 million for some of the top end Ferraris. My own personal insurance should
00:30go up as I touch it.
00:32But Lance had a more humble start to his career.
00:37They stopped making idiots like me about 30 years ago. Now I'm a traditional panel beater,
00:42manufacturing panels, not crash repair. I worked at the Rolls Royce coachbuilders called Mulliner
00:47Park Ward. So it's a tragedy that the skills have gotten and almost every metal worker
00:53that I know from there has either retired or got out of the trade and I just kept going.
00:56That's all I really knew. So from being a dodo to being a go to man for bespoke metalwork.
01:02Helping to manage the business is Lance's son Merlin, who also runs his own classic car
01:08dealership, Duke of London.
01:10And this is a Merlin.
01:11I've been around Dad's business since I was born. He used to babysit us while we were still
01:17in our cot while he was at work. I started buying and selling cars when I was 11. I found
01:22the gap in the market with eBay. I was sort of buying heaps of junk, getting them through
01:27an MOT and flogging them on. I went into the city for a while. Despite doing quite well,
01:32I 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 free cars on Instagram. I've sold a couple of cars through Facebook. I've managed
01:44those pages as well as I've managed my website. It's had its ups and downs over the years, but
01:49I think I wouldn't have taken the leap from a full-time salaried job to something like
01:54this if I didn't have the confidence in our relationship.
01:57The father and son combinations pay in dividends. And now the pair have a two-year waiting list
02:03of customers. Their current projects include this amazing Ferrari.
02:06It's a very important historic car and this car at some point in its life would have been
02:12worth tens of thousands. Now we're talking about 10 million plus.
02:19And they look at a rare Aston Martin with engine trouble.
02:25Yeah, I don't think this screwdriver is going to cure that.
02:34Looking slightly less glamorous at the moment is another Aston Martin project.
02:37This is an Aston Martin DB4 shell showing the principle of Superleggera. This one's in for
02:44a hell of a lot of work. We're doing a Zagato replica on an original Aston chassis. And this
02:49thing here has cost us a quarter of a million pounds. Our one finished would be just over a
02:53million pounds. It would be a faithful replica of a Zagato.
02:59Clearly Lance and Merlin love the cars they have the chance to work on.
03:02At 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 I'm sort
03:13of blessed to be able to be a day custodian shall we say. I look after them for the day.
03:18I get to drive them, I get to smell them, recreate features that have been lost 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 duchess
03:33types and they would all ask, well what do you do? And rather than just say I work at
03:37Rolls-Royce, I'm a metal worker or a restore, I say I'm with the romance of rust. Oh really
03:42dear? And they would often leave it at that but it was just a little 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. With the current state of the market things
04:02are looking good for Lance and Merlin. The classic cars have outdone gold for the last
04:06two years and they don't seem to be slowing down. The business is looking very rosy, we've
04:10never been busier. But with all this demand for restoration and sales, Lance and Merlin need
04:15to expand rapidly to keep up. And despite the pressures brought by success, the McCormacks
04:20are passionate about what they do. It doesn't seem like work. I sort of pinch myself sometimes,
04:25I'm being paid to do something that I love.
04:28Next time on Rasta Riches, the Ferrari's windscreen needs resealing. But work on such an expensive
04:38car is never without its worries. There'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.
04:47It's nightmarish if that happens.