A Tale of Two Chevys - Rust To Riches - Episode 5 | Ridiculous Rides
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
00:00 COMM: 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 COMM: Merlin has a pair of Chevrolets in stock
00:21 and while one of them needs a lot of work, the other one is a bit of a beauty.
00:26 MERLIN MCCORMACK, Owner, Romance of Rust
00:28 This here is quite a rare car. It's one of only a few in the country. It's a 1969
00:32 Chevrolet Chevelle SS based on the Chevy Malibu. Unfortunately, the engine in this car isn't
00:38 the original engine. What can often happen with American cars, a crate or new factory
00:43 engines are put into them which completely deteriorates the value of a car. This one
00:47 actually had original 396, 325 brake engine sourced for it, which is what it would have
00:52 had originally and it's been meticulously restored. The car was shipped into the UK
00:58 earlier this year.
00:59 COMM: Such a prize inspired a risky buy-in
01:01 strategy on the part of its current owner.
01:04 MERLIN MCCORMACK, Owner, Romance of Rust
01:05 This car was actually bought blind by its owner. However, there are ways around losing
01:09 sleep at night when you do these things. He paid for an independent inspection to be carried
01:13 out in America, which provided him with a 350 point checklist of the condition of the
01:18 car as well as 100 plus photos. So he really knew what he was getting himself in for. But
01:22 this I feel confident in saying is by far the best one in the country, if not in Europe
01:27 and it's a show winner.
01:28 COMM: With so many ways of selling cars available
01:31 nowadays, Merlin knows the importance of advertising in the right places.
01:35 MERLIN MCCORMACK, Owner, Romance of Rust
01:36 This is the Chevelle that I've got for sale at the moment. I have chosen to advertise
01:41 this on eBay. We're asking £37,500 for that. I feel that, you know, at that kind of level,
01:47 eBay is an appropriate place to be listing things like that. Again, were this a £375,000
01:53 car, eBay would be the last place I'd put it. I have also got it on a lot of American
01:57 specific sites, forums, things like that because a lot of the Americans seen in the UK are
02:02 very hot on their weird quirky forums.
02:05 COMM: If the car is as good as Merlin says
02:08 it is, why is the owner selling it?
02:10 MERLIN MCCORMACK, Owner, Romance of Rust
02:11 The bloke who owns this car actually came to me earlier in the year with a previous
02:14 Chevrolet he owned which he sold to buy this car, looking to restore it with Dad. Again,
02:19 that car needed too much work, he decided to sell it privately on eBay, bought this
02:23 car from the States and it's too good for him. He needs something a bit more road worthy,
02:28 not a trailer queen.
02:29 COMM: As well as the Chevelle, Merlin also
02:32 has another Chevrolet on his books.
02:34 MERLIN MCCORMACK, Owner, Romance of Rust
02:35 Here we've got a 1960 Chevrolet Nomad. It's
02:37 based on a '60 Impala. The Nomad refers to the station wagon, i.e. the estate on the
02:42 back. It's a 283 Chevy small block engine in there.
02:45 COMM: While it might not be the prettiest
02:47 car, the vehicle's had something of an interest in history.
02:49 MERLIN MCCORMACK, Owner, Romance of Rust
02:50 The guy who I got it from had seen it in New
02:52 York in the 80s. He fell in love with it and he couldn't afford it. He came back over
02:56 to the UK and was driving around Yorkshire one day with a friend and the same car was
02:59 sitting on a forecourt of just a local car dealer. He couldn't believe it, he had to
03:04 have it, so lo and behold he bought it, drove it every day for about 15 years. He then decided
03:11 to race it down a beach, which is fine if you're going to clean your car afterwards,
03:15 and let it sit in a yard for four years afterwards.
03:17 COMM: Perhaps unsurprisingly, such treatment
03:20 has had an adverse effect on the bodywork.
03:22 MERLIN MCCORMACK, Owner, Romance of Rust
03:23 On this car, the rust is indisguisable. You
03:26 can see here around the rear wheel arch, it's quite literally coming off in your hand. That's
03:32 an MOT fail beyond anything else. It's unsafe, both to pedestrians and to whoever's in the
03:37 car. The engine is running beautifully, we've just overhauled the brakes for whoever buys
03:41 it because it wasn't safe to even move. On the outer seal down here, there's a lot
03:47 of rust bubbles. What worries me is what's hiding behind them. The inner seal is arguably
03:52 one of the most vital parts towards the structure of the car. Without it, the car could quite
03:56 literally snap in half. You'd have to remove the outer seal to fix that and I wouldn't
04:00 be at all surprised if you were opening a huge can of worms. The insides of these tend
04:04 to just completely rot out. You really are just relying on the strength of the roof and
04:08 the body panels to keep the car looking as it is.
04:11 It's not just the exterior that leaves a lot to be desired.
04:14 The interior itself has been home to a family of rats before we picked it up for about seven
04:20 years so they've gone to town on the place. We have disinfected the whole thing, hence
04:24 why I'm sitting in it now, but it does still smell in here.
04:28 But being in such poor condition meant it was a bit of a bargain and one Merlin couldn't
04:33 resist. We picked this up for three grand. It was something that appealed to me more
04:38 than anything. You shouldn't always follow your heart in this industry but we've had
04:42 some fun with it. Back in the day, Dad probably would have looked at finishing this off, taking
04:47 it on as a project, but the thing is we've picked up so much business elsewhere of a
04:52 higher calibre that we really don't need to be doing stuff like this anymore. It is more
04:57 a labour of love when it comes to stuff like this. There isn't a huge amount of cash in
05:01 it and at the end of the day he's trying to run a business.
05:04 So what does Merlin plan to do with it now?
05:07 It doesn't look quite as bad as it is and that's saying something because it doesn't
05:11 look great. Everything from the waist down has gone. I've taken this on as a real project
05:16 for someone who wants something to keep them busy over winter. It's going to keep them
05:21 very busy. There's a lot of people who want it for a rat rod or a surf wagon or something.
05:26 You wouldn't think necessarily there's a huge market for that over here but I've been pleasantly
05:29 surprised over the years as to how big the hot rod and American scene has grown over
05:33 here.
05:34 Someone's really got their work cut out here but it's going to make quite a cool wagon
05:37 once it's done. It really just needs a lot of love from a welder. We're going to ship
05:43 it on for four and I think there's enough room left in that price for somebody to take
05:47 it on and see a profit out of it once they've restored it.
05:51 Next time on Rustor Riches...
05:52 I'm certainly not going to put a two thousand pound pressing on there in the wrong place
05:56 because I know what they should look like and they certainly shouldn't look like that.
05:59 [Music]