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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00:00Master 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. Lance is
00:19one of the country's leading metal work and restoration experts, and today he's working
00:24on a classic Porsche that's seen better days. This is a 61, 62 Porsche 356 Coupe. This one's
00:33in for a customer. I'm doing all the hard metal work for him. He's stripped it. I've got to
00:38put a new nose section on. These are so popular now and these have good value about them. This
00:43finishes about 80 or 90. If I were buying one of these, I would be inclined to buy a restoration
00:49project from California or Texas. That way you haven't got the rust that's got into its
00:54very soul. If you get a car from a dry state, the bodies then, my California car, we stripped
01:01it down and there's very little rust on it at all. There's some damage from racing, but
01:06it was a pleasure to work on then. This one has been through the wars. Now it's stripped
01:11to bare metal. It's showing signs of its history, warts and all. We've got traces of race history
01:18crashing. This is high here. This was too close so they've bashed it all back just to get
01:23it on the road quickly again, you know.
01:25It's the fitting of a new part that's revealed how far from the original shape the car has
01:30become.
01:31This is a replacement second-hand bonnet from California, so it's dry state, got all the
01:36correct datums on it. But it shows now quite how bad the front was damaged. The other bonnet
01:42actually lined up so the bonnet was in the wrong shape completely.
01:47When I put this on, it will be in accordance with the data that's around here. The levels,
01:52the clearances, the fit and finish. These were campaigned. You can see, it's not just
01:55about the rust on it. This has had several bad accidents. I'll take care of all that.
02:00Once the front's off and I've made it weak, I'll use a hydraulic device to push this across
02:06before I even think about putting a new panel on. I'm certainly not going to put a 2,000 pound
02:10pressing on there in the wrong place. Given the chance with my hand and my eye and my history
02:14with these 356s, I know what they should look like. They certainly shouldn't look like that.
02:21While Lance contemplates his latest restoration challenge, Merlin has been expanding his stock
02:27of cars to sell.
02:28A week ago, I bought this. It's a 1984 Mercedes 380 SL of the R107 Mercedes chassis. It's a
02:37great little car. It runs fantastically.
02:39Although an advocate of using modern technology in his classic car business, Merlin is also
02:44aware of the pitfalls of the internet.
02:46I actually found this car on eBay. It had been up there a few times. To anyone who doesn't
02:52know any better, it's a presentable car. When I saw the car and pulled it apart, we both
02:57knew then why it hadn't sold. The danger of the internet is a lot of cars out there are
03:03bought blind. You really can't tell what a car's like without seeing it in the flesh.
03:08I have so many people coming to me telling me their car's worth so much and asking me to
03:12sell it for even more because they've bought it on the internet and therefore it must be
03:15worth more. It's nonsense. People need to get a grip and the reality of it is, unless
03:20you've seen the car in the flesh, you are taking a huge, huge risk.
03:23He was able to call on Lance's expertise and knowledge of these cars to predict exactly
03:28what might be wrong with this one.
03:31Dad said to me, he's done plenty of these. He knows where they're going to go. Lo and
03:35behold, we've done a bit more further investigation into this car and all the places he's predicted
03:39will have gone have gone.
03:41The rear arches are famous for rusting out on these 107s. These have been done to a fairly
03:46atrocious standard. I don't know if you can see down here the ripple effect we've got here
03:52and it hasn't helped. Somebody has scraped it as well.
03:55They need to be completely stripped back to bare metal and even probably new pattern arches
04:00fitted. What we do is we weld them in beneath the surface. They get a skimmer filler and a
04:05nice finish which will eradicate this ripple finish you see before you.
04:09So how exactly does Merlin intend to turn a profit from the beleaguered Mercedes?
04:13I picked the car up for what I think is fair. We're looking at spending about £2,500 on
04:19the paint. I'm then going to market the car at about £12,000. It's the complete wrong time
04:24of year to be selling a convertible as far as the public are concerned. What I tend to do
04:29first is offer it out to other people in the trade or my customers who I know might be interested.
04:33Beyond that it goes on to online marketing. There's plenty of classic car websites out
04:37there. What's more likely with this car is I'll send it to auction and see what she makes
04:41me.
04:41What's the deal?
04:43What does the有點 состояние feel whenAhom dedicated to the merci of my customers?
04:45You