Richard Hammond's Workshop (2021) s01e03 Episode Script
Episode 3
1
This time
A job - who doesn't love
a classic mini?
Finally, I bring in some work
for my classic car
restoration business.
It's a snappy turn around,
quick, boom!
But the boys are not impressed
Do you not realise, seriously,
how much money we've spent
on this car?
A rare barn-find Bentley offers
the promise of better jobs ahead.
Oh my word
I so want us to have
a shot at that car.
But will my big ideas
for the business bleed me dry?
This could easily turn out to be
a very expensive folly
that I regret.
It's all very real now.
Cars have been my life.
Just give me a bit more!
Talking about them
This is a force of nature.
Thrashing them
That's not what I wanted to see!
And crashing them.
But now
Don't panic, I'm here.
..I'm fulfilling
my lifelong dream
and starting my own
classic car workshop.
Should I get my overalls on?
Restoring some of the finest
classic cars in the world.
Heavenly automotive Lord!
With father and son team,
Neil and Anthony Greenhouse
We're trusting him
with our reputation.
Look away, bodging in process.
Oh, you son of a
I'll be learning how
to be a businessman.
What you need is
The Smallest Cog.
To be honest you've got
my attention a bit now!
And getting my hands dirty.
I'm going to swallow this screw
in a minute and die.
Can you do it quietly?
It will test my bank balance.
We could ruin
the business quite easily.
And my relationships.
You'll enjoy it.
Will I?
As I take my obsession
to a whole new level.
It's the best game I've ever played
and the most terrifying.
London Classic car show was,
in many ways, a big success.
I mean, it was busy
but we haven't really signed
a lot of work from it, if any.
I thought having a face off
the telly in the business
would bring the work in,
but actually it just turned out
to be a distraction.
I promised Neil & Anthony
high-end classics,
and a new workshop
to restore them in.
At the moment they've got neither.
And if I don't deliver soon,
they'll lose faith in me.
I need to get them some work.
I was hoping for something special,
but right now
anything will do.
I'm on my way to pick up a job.
It's a car - classic Mini.
That's the good news.
The slightly trickier news is,
it belongs to
my daughter's boyfriend.
It's in a hedge.
How do?
Alright.
Hello.
That's it, then?
This is the beast.
Right. What happened?
Erm, sort of going a bit fast
and one-eightied it into a hedge.
How long's it been
About four years,
it's been nowhere.
Right, well, we'd better
get it out of the hedge.
Will it roll?
It should do Well, come on then,
make yourself useful.
Not rolled for a while
One, two, three.
Right, there it is in all it's
Glory!
Wa-hay!
Oh, it's got crappy sports seats.
There is going to be rot here.
Izzy, you said
it was just a bit dented.
Oh. Oh.
It's also rusty.
Ooh.
Oh God.
The cobwebs are quite,
quite something. (LAUGHS)
Heavenly automotive Lord.
It is a slightly bigger job
than I thought.
What sort of level
do you want to take this to?
Just sort of running.
Pristine?
You
(LAUGHING)
..can go on silent.
Yeah.
He seems happy, doesn't he?
I think he loves it.
I did strike a bit
of a deal with Daddy.
He needed a project,
Cam has a project,
two and two together, voila!
And heave!
Yeah! Stop, stop, stop.
Youth! Ugh!
I don't think Cam
can actually afford
all the work that Mini is going
to need just to get it going.
He says he's got a budget
of about a grand.
That's not going to cover it.
I may have to make up the difference
out of my own pocket.
But I don't think I'm going to share
that piece of information
with Neil and Antony.
It's a paying job.
A job.
Interesting little thing.
Who doesn't love a classic mini?
Has this been in a demolition
Derby or something?
It's a younger customer
and it hasn't run in a while.
I think what we are
going for here
Full resto?
It's down from a full resto,
it's a snappy turn around,
quick, boom.
What you're trying to say is
he is budget conscious.
Yes, he is.
Right, shall we get it in
and get it on?
You steer, I'll push.
This is kind of a moment of truth,
isn't it, this? Yep.
Ooh, look at that.
That's the floor panel?
Oh yes.
Oh God.
That wants replacing,
sills want replacing,
the front panel's rotted out.
It'll want brakes,
the discs will be rotten.
The exhaust
Yeah, the exhaust has had it.
Is that it?
We're getting there.
We could cut the doors off,
put complete skins on.
Can't you get half skins?
Depends how good
a job you want to do.
It's just price.
More labour, mind.
Yeah, but we can do that.
I'll go through our list,
we've got near side, offside sills,
rear subframe, A-panels, exhaust,
front panel, pair of bumpers,
wheel studs, shock absorbers
times four,
window strip, door bottoms.
How much is all that lot
going to cost?
It's not going to be cheap.
It's going to be 1200 quid
I would say.
Do you reckon we should give him
a call first?
I wouldn't just go ordering
all those bits.
Trouble is, if you do all this work
and he can't pay,
what are you going to do then?
(MUMBLES)
Look, I wasn't going to say.
It belongs to
my daughter's boyfriend, Cam.
He is doing it on a tight budget
but he'll pay what he can.
I'll pay the difference.
It's work.
It's through the books, you know,
if we're doing the work,
I'll pay for the work.
That's not an easy job.
It's the hours - you could spend
a hundred hours on that car.
You could spend
5000 pound in labour
and that's reality,
and he needs a bit of reality
to make him see that when
you're promising the world,
it's not as easy as it sounds.
At least you can do some work;
keep the labour costs down
a little bit, can't you?
The quicker you work,
the less hours gets charged.
Well, let's start
pulling bits off it.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
Hello, spider.
I hate these.
Bodging in process, look away.
Come on, don't be silly now.
You are coming off.
Aaaaah. Right up thumbnail.
Where's the screw drivers?
Let me guess.
They're kept with sink plungers
and roller skates.
This is the trouble
with having a small garage,
where you can't,
you're tripping over everything.
Well, if you just put everything
away where it should be!
Yeah, but when you're busy,
you're just trying
to keep on top of everything.
Well, it saves time
in the long run.
Have you looked
in the black drawer, that end?
I've looked in every drawer
Far end, looked in there?
How Neil ever gets any work done,
I don't know.
(MAJESTIC MUSIC)
There is a garage on your left,
quite a big posh one.
That's not us.
Turn right opposite that.
Keep going until
it gets really grotty.
And then it's a bit grottier
and then that's where we are,
you'll see my Land Rover.
Bye.
Mindy is coming down,
for the first time,
to the workshop.
She is driving out here
to service her own car.
OK, that makes it
a weird day officially,
I don't know what's going
to happen next.
Maybe I'm going to ride
the Grand National on a horse.
Hello.
Hello.
So what are you going to do?
Everything. Should I get
my overalls on?
Oh, look. Velco, easy.
So you're going to do this
under Antony's guidance.
Yeah.
So Antony is The Master.
Well, knock yourselves out.
I'll stay out of your way,
I promise.
Got rid of him for a minute.
So
Right then.
..when was the last time
you played with an engine?
30 years ago.
What can you remember?
Righty tighty, lefty loosey.
That's it.
Try a little extension on that.
Oh, thank you.
Just to make it
Extra little bit helps. Yes.
Every little helps.
That's it.
So you done this before much?
I used to do it when I was a kid.
It's all different now, ain't it?
Oh, it's changed.
It's all computers now
Is it me or is it a funny angle?
Yeah. Goes back on itself.
That is a faff.
What are you attacking?
Getting spark plugs out.
They're flipping hidden.
Good luck.
Come on baby, come out, come on.
She's genuinely losing
herself in it.
It'sI've not seen Mindy
this involved with machinery
since when
we first started going out.
I'd forgotten
that that Mindy existed.
The one in there in her overalls
with a smudge of oil on her face,
fettling a car
and chattering away.
I'd forgotton. It's fabulous.
And she looks quite hot in her
overalls so that's good as well.
They're going to have them
in all the best boutiques
by the end of the year.
When we get home this evening,
we'll have shared ground to
talk about, which is really cool.
This is the first big step
in me properly coming home
and finding my place again
with Mindy and the girls.
I'm suddenly very fond of that car.
Thank you.
He's not very busy, is he,
not very hands on?
Look at his hands, moisturised.
Mm, he does gardening and comes
home with great big blisters.
He occasionally
has mucked out one stable.
One stable?
And the fuss and the blisters
on his little precious soft hands.
Precious little hands.
Yeah.
Do you feel sorry for him?
No.
No.
Mostly he seems to read
classic car magazines,
drink tea, nap
and eat biscuits.
I'm a little bit concerned
about productivity.
What's coming in
and what's coming out
and where the what's coming in
is coming from. (LAUGHS)
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
Right, back to work.
To prevent this Mini job
haemorrhaging cash
from my pocket, we need to do it
quickly and cheaply.
I reckon we can save some cash
by fitting half
instead of full door-skins.
It should just pop off.
See that there, look?
That goes
So we've got to weld this to there.
Neil, it's a bit long.
Yeah, it's not an original panel.
That's where the skill comes in.
You've got to make it look
like it's an original thing.
It's going to take hours to do that.
So, the minute I stop
and pull the gun away,
you blow it and get it cool.
And if you get it too hot,
that's when you risk buckling?
Yeah, you gotta keep checking
as you go along.
OK, three, two, one
I'm beginning to think
it might have been better
if I'd bought complete
door skins, If I'm honest,
none of this would
have been necessary.
He is now realising
it's not a two minute job.
He thinks he's being clever,
trying to save a few quid,
but he's not and that's what
he's got to learn.
(PHONE RINGS)
Has this literally just happened?
I'll be there as quickly
as I can. OK, bye.
Love you.
Daughters. Yeah!
Um, Izzy has just hit a pothole,
broken a wheel and burst a tyre.
Erm, I'm going to have to go
on a rescue mission.
Right, OK, I need a Land Rover
and a trailer.
All those years away from home,
I've done it to support my family.
I am a family man before
I'm a television presenter
or anything else.
Setting up a business close to home
and having this experience
has reminded me
just how much is actually
involved in that.
There she is.
Oh, she looks sad. Oh dear.
You remember Cam.
Right, I'm going to put it
on the trailer, baby.
Not a good day! Not a good day!
Nothing good has happened today!
Stop laughing. He's laughing.
Be supportive.
Right. Which wheel is it?
Oh, it's the flat one.
Oh, well, you haven't done
the wheel. That is just the tyre.
We'll have a new one
on that tomorrow
and have it home again.
Bye, baby.
Have a nice evening. Love you.
She'll cheer up.
Cheers mate, see you in a bit.
You're back then?
Yeah. Do you wanna know
something I've just noticed?
(GROANS)
Same pothole?
I don't think it was the same
Buy one get one free, is it?
Yes, I'm sorry.
You do realise, don't you, that the
Mini's still got to be finished?
Oh god.
The reality of it is deadlines.
I've got things to do,
I can't be here
so I am going to have to
instruct him on what to do,
so now he's got to stand up now
and carry on and keep working.
In the morning when I get here,
I want this ready for primer,
and you want to be able
to put a ruler on it,
look down it, make sure it's level.
Understand?
Yes.
Good night and make sure
you lock up and put the alarm on.
You chose it.
I know!
Ughhh. This is nice to be here.
It's lovely, isn't it?
Well, what do you think?
In all fairness,
you've done alright.
Don't look bad,
what time did you finish?
You know late at night? It was that.
It wasn't early
in the morning, quite.
But how much would I have saved?
It would have been honestly
cheaper to put a door skin on it.
A whole door skin would have cost?
Probably that strip there
was probably 30 pounds,
a whole door skin
would have probably about 60.
Oh, oh, give me a minute.
Really?
Yeah.
And how many hours and hours
have you had on that?
More than 30 quids' worth
of my life.
Now are you going to listen?
Yeah. Lesson learned.
Shan't do that again, sorry.
(SAD MUSIC)
No more family favours
or run-of-the-mill classics.
I need to start
setting my sights higher.
Much higher.
Well, I've had an idea for
a possible lead. Guy called Dean.
He got in touch with me
because he loves his cars
and he wanted to meet up.
When I say he loves his cars,
I mean he's totally nuts about them,
specifically Bentleys.
This that I've got,
I've had it for years.
I love it. It's absolutely
the Boggo Bentley of the 50s
and into the 60s.
The Bentley's he's got, you know,
they're hand built of aluminium,
incredibly rare.
I'm touting for business.
There's no getting away from it.
Oh hello, I think he's laid on
a bit of a show for me.
Dean, he couldn't resist it.
He's got some of his toys out.
I'll park here,
right in the middle of them.
That is a car.
Dean hello, how are you,
are you well?
Yes.
Really what I'm interested in
is how do I move
from where we are
to where I want to go,
which is a nicer class of car,
a nicer class of restoration
project, the big boy stuff?
You need a starting point,
you need to find
one of those cars
that fulfil that criteria.
Restore the car
and prove to the industry
that you've restored the car
in a professional manner.
I have a car,
that I'd like to show you.
I'm guessing
it's some sort of Bentley?
Absolutely. You've got it right.
Spot on.
And it's convertible.
Exactly. So what we've got here
is an R type.
That's a rare car?
Indeed.
How rare?
Well, they only ever,
as you can see it here and now,
made three.
One no longer exists.
So there's one other one than this.
That is a rarity.
That is the original seats there,
that's beautiful.
Exactly. It's been restored
to pristine condition
but kept original elements
that were always in the car.
This would be the ultimate
for our business model.
So that's your kind of unicorn car.
It's a brilliant thought, Dean.
Where's the other one?
So, I have exactly
the sister car of this one
that is in need
of restoration.
The other one of these?
The second one.
So, Richard.
Let's hope it's still inside.
Well, yeah. Ready steady,
here we go.
Oh my word.
(LAUGHS)
Still there.
It's tempting me.
Well, let's have a look,
can we have a look?
Can we disrobe it?
There's paint. There's paint on it.
Oh, the wood's not bad at all.
Oh my word!
If you are a car fan,
that's, like goosebump moment
when you find something
that's in this particular state,
un-restored, incredibly special,
I mean, rarer than rare.
Dean, what I need to do then
is find a way that me and my boys
can prove to you
that we could take this in
and turn it around into something
as beautiful as it needs to be.
Absolutely.
I'm not a man
that's often speechless,
but I'm pretty close
to it in here.
(LAUGHING)
Right, let's put it away.
God, I want a shot at that,
I so want us to have a shot
at that car. It's going to
come down to doing a job for him.
And I know he's jolly
and ha ha ha ha,
but yeah, he's no idiot.
He's going to need to see proof
that we're up to the job.
Back in Hereford,
our rather more modest classic
is turning out to be anything other
than the quick and easy project
I thought it would be.
This job has just become
a nightmare after nightmare
after nightmare.
The problem is he's promised this
car back for tomorrow morning
and we're nowhere near.
We've got to finish the prep,
get it primed, get it painted.
So, it's, it's going to be
a late night. Proper late night.
Afternoon, gentlemen.
Hello.
It's not painted.
The little Mini job?
Not little at all is it?
Didn't you not realise, seriously,
thathow much money
you spent on this car?
Everything on it, everything.
It's had brakes, it's had subframe,
it's hadremember the sills?
Sills, inner sill,
outer sill, 'A' panels,
door bottoms, discs, callipers,
even the fuel tank's rotten.
Are you cross?
I'm a bit worried,
to be honest with you because
Well, so am I, it's not done.
The problem is the bill is getting
close to what the car's worth.
It's probably going
to be four or five grand.
It's all about the value of the car.
If that was a £5000 bill
on a 100 grand car,
it wouldn't be a lot of money.
Alright, there are lessons
to be learned here.
I need to learn,
perhaps not to get carried away
and not talk to you
before I talk about a job
because sometimes there's more
to be done than I can see.
Get that. And I won't do it again.
Good.
To be honest,
we love him to bits
but you've got to make him see
it's not a game, is it,
it's serious.
If this was every day
this was happening,
you couldn't run a business because
you'd just end up falling out.
I wouldn't upset him for the world
but you've got to learn.
How long after being painted
can it go back together?
If you're lucky, 30 minutes.
It's getting on a bit now.
It's like ten o clock
and we're nowhere near finished now.
That wire's going go through
therethat channel there.
I really got my doubts about it,
but we are going to go flat out.
Come on. Ooh, well done.
We'll just do what we possibly can,
and that's all we can do.
Oh, yes.
(GENTLE MUSIC)
Oh, my god.
It's so shiny.
I can't believe
it's actually driving.
(LAUGHING)
Wow. Oh, my god.
There's no rust.
Ain't he lovely? Hello dogs.
Eh, voila.
Thank you very much.
There it is.
It does look really lovely.
So that's been,
you know, rejuvenated.
There's no cobwebs.
Well. There it is.
It looks amazing.
It looks so good.
Well, no point standing around.
We rebuilt it to drive.
So, drive it.
Take it. Shake it down.
That's what they say you know.
They say give it a shake down.
You, young people!
Seatbelts
But it still works exactly
as it used to. Don't bend it.
Bye!
That is proper satisfying.
That's very cute.
I'm pleased to get that done.
It's gorgeous.
Yeah. It's satisfying seeing
a little Mini on the road.
I mean, you had Minis,
you know what they're like?
Yeah.
They're lovely.
I loved my mini.
Floor it, baby.
Woo! Yippee!
You've just given them
the wedding car.
I have not given them
the wedding car!
Careful!
(LAUGHS)
After endless delays,
it's finally happened.
The new workshop building is up
and I can show it to Neil
and Anthony for the first time.
This is what we've been
trying to do all along,
this is the point
of this exercise.
Our new homeIt's enormous!
Blinking heck.
I've never had
a building you can echo in.
(IMITATES ECHO)
It is just vast.
To be somewhere like this now
is just unreal, it's just
a different world altogether.
This is you know, 10 times,
what I expected.
He hasn't let us down because this
is a fantastic workshop.
So where are we with layout?
What's going to go where?
The oven is four metres, innit?
That's without a paintroom on it.
So that's the oven.
That's the oven.
The other thing is you're going
to need some newer kit.
For the image and safety obviously,
but image wise, yeah.
Make you a shopping list then,
is it?
Yes, but we can't afford
to get this wrong
because we have to pay
for everything we put in it,
every wall, every door,
every tread of every stair, costs.
This could easily run away with me.
This could easily turn out to be
a very expensive folly
that I regret.
Right now I feel initially
a bit scared.
Then excited at the prospect,
this is what I've wanted
to do all along,
and then I feel scared again
'cause then I realise
to do this justice, to make it work,
to make it pay for itself,
I'm going to have to spend
a lot of money.
Yeah.
It's both the best game
I've ever played
and the most terrifying
potentially.
The single most important,
and most expensive,
piece of equipment in a classic
car workshop is the paint oven.
A second rate paint job
could ruin a top end restoration.
To save myself a small fortune,
we're taking Neil's old oven
with us, so Anthony's got
an electrician in to plan the move.
Ant, you about?
Hi Kev.
Hi mate, you alright?
Yeah, good thanks.
I really need you to have
a look over this thing
because it's going to be
moving now.
OK, so let me just turn it off
and have a look.
This spray booth
is an old spray booth,
which, when it's in here,
it's under old regulations.
Once you move it
to the new workshop,
it will then be under
all the modern regulations,
and as you can see
by the wiring, it wants a lot
of improving to comply now.
What you're saying that
it's going to cost more to do this.
It's going to cost a lot to do that.
You can't just take it from here
and put it in there.
But I'm more worried about the time,
it could be out of action
for two months.
Yeah, I can't do that.
This is our main machine
so its got to go in
and work straight away.
Have you thought about getting
a different one?
Er no. Cause this is the plan,
moving this.
I obviously didn't know this
was going to be an issue.
If you can get a new one,
it might be a lot more practical.
(PHONE RINGS)
Hello?
Hello, Rich.
Hello mate, how are you?
Errr. Yeah not too bad, um
I've got some news on the oven.
Yes.
Not in a good state, mate.
Apparently it would cost
a lot of money
to move it and make it
work in the new workshop.
How much more?
We're looking thousands.
So what are we saying?
Maybe getting a new one.
A new oven?
A new oven.
How much is a new oven?
You're looking 20 plus.
OK, alright.
I'm sorry to be
the bearer of bad news.
No, it's alright mate. Don't worry,
Bye.
Bye.
Good. Another crisis, love em.
If the oven's not working,
we're not working.
I mean I thought it might be
a few thousand to move the oven.
But twenty grand plus,
that's a different level of spend.
Right, I need to have
a serious think about this.
A few weeks ago, I bought this
Escort RS2000 for us
to restore to make
some quick money.
With the business racking up bills,
we need to get it done
and out the door.
Right, well, that bit was OK
until Neil started on it.
It's got to be done
because you've got to see
what you've got
and what you haven't
Chassis there has got a bit of
rot there, got a bit of swelling.
In all fairness,
all that's original.
I think it is just suffering
from rust more than anything,
which is typical
for any old Ford.
Drop it to the ground,
not on your father's head.
I'm nervous about asking this.
So was it a good buy, at £24,000?
I would say yes.
You can't beat originality
and that is all original.
This wants a bit of work,
but it's not a rot box.
That's a real relief for me to hear
because with this car we're not
waiting for work to come to us,
we're making our own work,
taking control of our own destiny.
That's right.
We'll turn this car out
how we want it to be
and we will sell it,
and we go for the sort
of 45 grand price point.
Even after we've paid for parts
and our own labour,
there'll be profit in this.
Yeah.
Right, plan.
Sorted. Get on with it.
Time to crack on.
The auction is in three weeks time
and there's tons to do.
I'm in Wolverhampton, because
I have got in the back of the car,
all of the interior
from the RS Escort,
because we cannot do that in-house.
The materials you're using
are different.
Leather, plastic, metal.
It's not the same set of skills
so these people that I'm going
to go and see are specialists.
Oh, we're here - this is us.
Can I show you my Escort seats?
I'm amazed how heavy
these things are.
Yeah.
Right. We'll take these to your
appraisal place and have a look.
Right, appraise. They're brilliant.
It'll only cost 20 pounds and you
can have them done in a day.
Yes, that's fine.
(LAUGHING)
OK, good. That's the biggest worry.
What's the verdict for these,
can you do them?
I'm going to attempt to re-stretch
and pull down
and I'm going to re-dye it.
Cause you can't just buy like
a repair set, can you?
It's one of the mysteries
of the classic car world
that these things
remain like unicorns.
Do you want to have a look
at the back seat as well?
Yeah, we can grab that.
OK, well, there are clearly
problems here, like it's gone.
Yeah, looks like
it's been chewed to death.
Yes. Can you repair them?
I'm going to call Ryan over,
our Ford magician
and he's going to explain
all this to you.
So from this,
your can tell what year the car
was originally manufactured.
So if you go across, W, 1980.
Good and more to the point,
what colour did it leave
the factory in?
I've got X8 is the colour.
Which would have been
a midnight blue.
So it was midnight blue from new.
So that's actually quite rare,
I think.
Yeah, it is.
They didn't make many
in midnight blue? No.
The trim is A7.
Originally, A7, I believe,
would have been black.
Would it?
Yeah.
Black and blue.
Very strange colour combination.
Who orders a midnight blue car
with a black interior?
I am conflicted here, I'm stuck.
I love originality,
but I just think beige.
Beige would be more,
a stand out colour.
Beige is a much nicer colour. Right.
Beige.
Decision made. Beige.
That's door cards
and everything, isn't it?
A good choice.
Right, it's beige, we're going
beige.
OK. Thank you gentleman,
you may carry on.
Beige, definitely beige,
oh, there's black.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
So, I've got the quote here,
£2,548 for the interior,
that's fitted.
So the car,
plus the interior,
plus other parts needed
come to about 31,
32,000 pounds.
Then there's the labour, which
I am going to take into account.
Let's call it £5000 worth
of the labour cost to the business.
That's the overall cost
of the whole car,
is 36,000.
If I can sell it for 45,
we're making money.
Well, this is the inner wing
off the RS2000,
and you can see all this
nasty repairs and all that filler,
just tons of filler
all clagged up in there,
it's just atrocious.
The idea was we were
going to repair the pieces,
but the deadline is looming
on this auction
so the best thing to do
is just buy some new panel
and get it welded up.
Otherwise it's never going
to get done.
There's going to be a lot more
welding involved
so I'm gonna have to draught
my brother Andrew in
to give me a hand
if we got any chance
of meeting any of these deadlines.
Neil'd better get that RS
ready in time
because I'm about to go on
a very scary spending spree.
I'm going shopping.
It's a big shopping trip
because I'm shopping
for the spray paint booth
for the workshop.
This is a really big step,
this is big news,
this is the heart of the business
because that's where
the paint is applied.
And it doesn't matter how good
a job we've done in fabricating it
and preparing it, if the paint
goes on badly, it ain't any good.
But part of this is also
signalling to potential customers
and to the classic car industry
that we're serious.
We don't have a serious oven,
nobody is going
to take us seriously.
It's got to be good.
It's going to be
an expensive day, just is.
Don't get carried away. Right.
So this is an oven,
are they all the same?
They are not.
This is our fairly basic sort
of booth, so it's rear extract,
if you want the booth
with the better performance,
you want the downdraught
for the floor.
Err, I've got the figures here.
So for your basic rear extract,
you're looking at about 20 grand.
For the basic?
For the basic, yeah.
For the four extracts, which
are the high performance model,
it's more like 50.
Right. It's much better, is it?
Yeah, the performance is
considerably better, yeah.
OK. How much more does
it cost to have windows?
You're looking at
11,000 pounds per window.
(WHINES)
Wow. I also need
a paint mixing room.
Paint mixing room,
we've got 6,000 there
for a paint mixing room
standard size.
So how much is a prep bay?
So for the prep room,
you're looking at 14 grand.
Um, alright.
I knew it was going to be
an expensive day out.
It's just a bit of a shock
because it's gone from,
well, a few grand
to move Neil's old,
as it turns out, out-dated oven
or 65 grands worth of kit.
But, it's worth it.
It's got to be the best,
hasn't it?
It's no good us
saying we're really good
if the kit's rubbish.
Shopping for paint ovens
and all the other big kit we need
was never
going to be cheap.
I'm hoping the sale
of the RS2000 will get us
some desperately needed
cash coming in.
The auction's only a week away
so Neil has called in
his body-specialist brother
Andrew to help get the job done.
How's it going your end?
It's coming but
got a long way to go.
Well, this is the trouble, you know,
the more you look, the more you see.
Well, it's got to be right.
It's got to be safe
and it's got to be right.
I don't physically see
how it's possible
to do all this work
and get it to a standard
where it's worth a lot of money
in such a short amount of time.
So we'll have to have a bit
of a chat about that, I think.
Chaps. Hello. Oh, look at all this.
Phew. Blimey, it's basically
a new front end.
Yeah, the problem you got with it
is this is the first job
we've done as the Smallest Cog
and if you do one really bad job,
your name is just no good.
This is being collected
next week for the auction.
If you two aren't prepared
to stand behind it
and say we did that
as the Smallest Cog,
if you're actually staring
at your shoes
thinking, "I know it's not right."
Put it this way,
if you get it really good,
you think it's really good,
you're rushing to auction,
doesn't sell. Anything you've done
you're not happy with,
you're going to do again,
so you might just as well
take your time, do it right.
OK. Decision is formally taken.
Is it, by us three here present.
We cannot, for a raft of reasons,
risk leaving this in the auction
because it ain't going to be there.
OK, I'm going to go
and have a little cry. Um..
Don't cry. A learning experience.
Can I ask that you don't take
your foot off the gas though?
No, no we won't stop.
Right chaps. Carry on.
Cook steady.
I knew that was coming.
Honestly it, um
That was
(GROANS)
The truth of it now,
um, we are literally going
to run out of money.
As in, there won't be enough
in the bank to pay their salaries
and to pay the rent, and then we've
got the huge expense of moving.
(TENSE MUSIC)
I'm an idiot.
It's as simple as that,
it's this capital bit
I hadn't thought of.
So the oven,
to get what we want,
it's going to be 45,000.
Then I need,
if I'm going to do that,
a prep room, that's going
to be another 15 grand.
Then we need the paint mix room.
That's another five.
So airlines, I'm going to put seven.
Keep it simple.
Then we need, just tools.
It's going to be 10 grand for
a full set of everything we need.
Right, so that's
£87,000 there.
Then there's the mezzanine,
that will be another 20, Right.
We're at 107,000 pounds.
That's a chunk of change.
Ah.
Well, 107,000 buys
what I need now.
It doesn't keep us going.
If we had got the RS ready
for the auction
..it wouldn't have raised that,
would it?
It might have 15 grand profit in it.
We'll need 10 times that.
But maybe that auction
is the answer,
maybe I don't take the RS,
maybe I sell my cars.
And then I put the money
into the business.
Well, it's a choice, isn't it?
I can have a classic car collection
or a classic car business.
And I've gone too far down the road
towards a business to stop now.
If I abandon it,
now I've ruined Neil and Antony,
'cause they've shut down
their business.
I'll do whatever it takes
and if what it takes
is selling my cars and bikes,
I will sell them,
because this is the path I'm taking.
This has been my home for 26 years.
Right?
Once your house is empty,
its not your home anymore, is it?
We need stuff
so I'm selling stuff to buy stuff.
Lot number five.
I actually can't watch it,
this is going to hurt.
43. 44.
They've just been singled out
to pay the ultimate sacrifice.
At 40,000 pounds
Captioned by Ai-Media
ai-media.tv
This time
A job - who doesn't love
a classic mini?
Finally, I bring in some work
for my classic car
restoration business.
It's a snappy turn around,
quick, boom!
But the boys are not impressed
Do you not realise, seriously,
how much money we've spent
on this car?
A rare barn-find Bentley offers
the promise of better jobs ahead.
Oh my word
I so want us to have
a shot at that car.
But will my big ideas
for the business bleed me dry?
This could easily turn out to be
a very expensive folly
that I regret.
It's all very real now.
Cars have been my life.
Just give me a bit more!
Talking about them
This is a force of nature.
Thrashing them
That's not what I wanted to see!
And crashing them.
But now
Don't panic, I'm here.
..I'm fulfilling
my lifelong dream
and starting my own
classic car workshop.
Should I get my overalls on?
Restoring some of the finest
classic cars in the world.
Heavenly automotive Lord!
With father and son team,
Neil and Anthony Greenhouse
We're trusting him
with our reputation.
Look away, bodging in process.
Oh, you son of a
I'll be learning how
to be a businessman.
What you need is
The Smallest Cog.
To be honest you've got
my attention a bit now!
And getting my hands dirty.
I'm going to swallow this screw
in a minute and die.
Can you do it quietly?
It will test my bank balance.
We could ruin
the business quite easily.
And my relationships.
You'll enjoy it.
Will I?
As I take my obsession
to a whole new level.
It's the best game I've ever played
and the most terrifying.
London Classic car show was,
in many ways, a big success.
I mean, it was busy
but we haven't really signed
a lot of work from it, if any.
I thought having a face off
the telly in the business
would bring the work in,
but actually it just turned out
to be a distraction.
I promised Neil & Anthony
high-end classics,
and a new workshop
to restore them in.
At the moment they've got neither.
And if I don't deliver soon,
they'll lose faith in me.
I need to get them some work.
I was hoping for something special,
but right now
anything will do.
I'm on my way to pick up a job.
It's a car - classic Mini.
That's the good news.
The slightly trickier news is,
it belongs to
my daughter's boyfriend.
It's in a hedge.
How do?
Alright.
Hello.
That's it, then?
This is the beast.
Right. What happened?
Erm, sort of going a bit fast
and one-eightied it into a hedge.
How long's it been
About four years,
it's been nowhere.
Right, well, we'd better
get it out of the hedge.
Will it roll?
It should do Well, come on then,
make yourself useful.
Not rolled for a while
One, two, three.
Right, there it is in all it's
Glory!
Wa-hay!
Oh, it's got crappy sports seats.
There is going to be rot here.
Izzy, you said
it was just a bit dented.
Oh. Oh.
It's also rusty.
Ooh.
Oh God.
The cobwebs are quite,
quite something. (LAUGHS)
Heavenly automotive Lord.
It is a slightly bigger job
than I thought.
What sort of level
do you want to take this to?
Just sort of running.
Pristine?
You
(LAUGHING)
..can go on silent.
Yeah.
He seems happy, doesn't he?
I think he loves it.
I did strike a bit
of a deal with Daddy.
He needed a project,
Cam has a project,
two and two together, voila!
And heave!
Yeah! Stop, stop, stop.
Youth! Ugh!
I don't think Cam
can actually afford
all the work that Mini is going
to need just to get it going.
He says he's got a budget
of about a grand.
That's not going to cover it.
I may have to make up the difference
out of my own pocket.
But I don't think I'm going to share
that piece of information
with Neil and Antony.
It's a paying job.
A job.
Interesting little thing.
Who doesn't love a classic mini?
Has this been in a demolition
Derby or something?
It's a younger customer
and it hasn't run in a while.
I think what we are
going for here
Full resto?
It's down from a full resto,
it's a snappy turn around,
quick, boom.
What you're trying to say is
he is budget conscious.
Yes, he is.
Right, shall we get it in
and get it on?
You steer, I'll push.
This is kind of a moment of truth,
isn't it, this? Yep.
Ooh, look at that.
That's the floor panel?
Oh yes.
Oh God.
That wants replacing,
sills want replacing,
the front panel's rotted out.
It'll want brakes,
the discs will be rotten.
The exhaust
Yeah, the exhaust has had it.
Is that it?
We're getting there.
We could cut the doors off,
put complete skins on.
Can't you get half skins?
Depends how good
a job you want to do.
It's just price.
More labour, mind.
Yeah, but we can do that.
I'll go through our list,
we've got near side, offside sills,
rear subframe, A-panels, exhaust,
front panel, pair of bumpers,
wheel studs, shock absorbers
times four,
window strip, door bottoms.
How much is all that lot
going to cost?
It's not going to be cheap.
It's going to be 1200 quid
I would say.
Do you reckon we should give him
a call first?
I wouldn't just go ordering
all those bits.
Trouble is, if you do all this work
and he can't pay,
what are you going to do then?
(MUMBLES)
Look, I wasn't going to say.
It belongs to
my daughter's boyfriend, Cam.
He is doing it on a tight budget
but he'll pay what he can.
I'll pay the difference.
It's work.
It's through the books, you know,
if we're doing the work,
I'll pay for the work.
That's not an easy job.
It's the hours - you could spend
a hundred hours on that car.
You could spend
5000 pound in labour
and that's reality,
and he needs a bit of reality
to make him see that when
you're promising the world,
it's not as easy as it sounds.
At least you can do some work;
keep the labour costs down
a little bit, can't you?
The quicker you work,
the less hours gets charged.
Well, let's start
pulling bits off it.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
Hello, spider.
I hate these.
Bodging in process, look away.
Come on, don't be silly now.
You are coming off.
Aaaaah. Right up thumbnail.
Where's the screw drivers?
Let me guess.
They're kept with sink plungers
and roller skates.
This is the trouble
with having a small garage,
where you can't,
you're tripping over everything.
Well, if you just put everything
away where it should be!
Yeah, but when you're busy,
you're just trying
to keep on top of everything.
Well, it saves time
in the long run.
Have you looked
in the black drawer, that end?
I've looked in every drawer
Far end, looked in there?
How Neil ever gets any work done,
I don't know.
(MAJESTIC MUSIC)
There is a garage on your left,
quite a big posh one.
That's not us.
Turn right opposite that.
Keep going until
it gets really grotty.
And then it's a bit grottier
and then that's where we are,
you'll see my Land Rover.
Bye.
Mindy is coming down,
for the first time,
to the workshop.
She is driving out here
to service her own car.
OK, that makes it
a weird day officially,
I don't know what's going
to happen next.
Maybe I'm going to ride
the Grand National on a horse.
Hello.
Hello.
So what are you going to do?
Everything. Should I get
my overalls on?
Oh, look. Velco, easy.
So you're going to do this
under Antony's guidance.
Yeah.
So Antony is The Master.
Well, knock yourselves out.
I'll stay out of your way,
I promise.
Got rid of him for a minute.
So
Right then.
..when was the last time
you played with an engine?
30 years ago.
What can you remember?
Righty tighty, lefty loosey.
That's it.
Try a little extension on that.
Oh, thank you.
Just to make it
Extra little bit helps. Yes.
Every little helps.
That's it.
So you done this before much?
I used to do it when I was a kid.
It's all different now, ain't it?
Oh, it's changed.
It's all computers now
Is it me or is it a funny angle?
Yeah. Goes back on itself.
That is a faff.
What are you attacking?
Getting spark plugs out.
They're flipping hidden.
Good luck.
Come on baby, come out, come on.
She's genuinely losing
herself in it.
It'sI've not seen Mindy
this involved with machinery
since when
we first started going out.
I'd forgotten
that that Mindy existed.
The one in there in her overalls
with a smudge of oil on her face,
fettling a car
and chattering away.
I'd forgotton. It's fabulous.
And she looks quite hot in her
overalls so that's good as well.
They're going to have them
in all the best boutiques
by the end of the year.
When we get home this evening,
we'll have shared ground to
talk about, which is really cool.
This is the first big step
in me properly coming home
and finding my place again
with Mindy and the girls.
I'm suddenly very fond of that car.
Thank you.
He's not very busy, is he,
not very hands on?
Look at his hands, moisturised.
Mm, he does gardening and comes
home with great big blisters.
He occasionally
has mucked out one stable.
One stable?
And the fuss and the blisters
on his little precious soft hands.
Precious little hands.
Yeah.
Do you feel sorry for him?
No.
No.
Mostly he seems to read
classic car magazines,
drink tea, nap
and eat biscuits.
I'm a little bit concerned
about productivity.
What's coming in
and what's coming out
and where the what's coming in
is coming from. (LAUGHS)
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
Right, back to work.
To prevent this Mini job
haemorrhaging cash
from my pocket, we need to do it
quickly and cheaply.
I reckon we can save some cash
by fitting half
instead of full door-skins.
It should just pop off.
See that there, look?
That goes
So we've got to weld this to there.
Neil, it's a bit long.
Yeah, it's not an original panel.
That's where the skill comes in.
You've got to make it look
like it's an original thing.
It's going to take hours to do that.
So, the minute I stop
and pull the gun away,
you blow it and get it cool.
And if you get it too hot,
that's when you risk buckling?
Yeah, you gotta keep checking
as you go along.
OK, three, two, one
I'm beginning to think
it might have been better
if I'd bought complete
door skins, If I'm honest,
none of this would
have been necessary.
He is now realising
it's not a two minute job.
He thinks he's being clever,
trying to save a few quid,
but he's not and that's what
he's got to learn.
(PHONE RINGS)
Has this literally just happened?
I'll be there as quickly
as I can. OK, bye.
Love you.
Daughters. Yeah!
Um, Izzy has just hit a pothole,
broken a wheel and burst a tyre.
Erm, I'm going to have to go
on a rescue mission.
Right, OK, I need a Land Rover
and a trailer.
All those years away from home,
I've done it to support my family.
I am a family man before
I'm a television presenter
or anything else.
Setting up a business close to home
and having this experience
has reminded me
just how much is actually
involved in that.
There she is.
Oh, she looks sad. Oh dear.
You remember Cam.
Right, I'm going to put it
on the trailer, baby.
Not a good day! Not a good day!
Nothing good has happened today!
Stop laughing. He's laughing.
Be supportive.
Right. Which wheel is it?
Oh, it's the flat one.
Oh, well, you haven't done
the wheel. That is just the tyre.
We'll have a new one
on that tomorrow
and have it home again.
Bye, baby.
Have a nice evening. Love you.
She'll cheer up.
Cheers mate, see you in a bit.
You're back then?
Yeah. Do you wanna know
something I've just noticed?
(GROANS)
Same pothole?
I don't think it was the same
Buy one get one free, is it?
Yes, I'm sorry.
You do realise, don't you, that the
Mini's still got to be finished?
Oh god.
The reality of it is deadlines.
I've got things to do,
I can't be here
so I am going to have to
instruct him on what to do,
so now he's got to stand up now
and carry on and keep working.
In the morning when I get here,
I want this ready for primer,
and you want to be able
to put a ruler on it,
look down it, make sure it's level.
Understand?
Yes.
Good night and make sure
you lock up and put the alarm on.
You chose it.
I know!
Ughhh. This is nice to be here.
It's lovely, isn't it?
Well, what do you think?
In all fairness,
you've done alright.
Don't look bad,
what time did you finish?
You know late at night? It was that.
It wasn't early
in the morning, quite.
But how much would I have saved?
It would have been honestly
cheaper to put a door skin on it.
A whole door skin would have cost?
Probably that strip there
was probably 30 pounds,
a whole door skin
would have probably about 60.
Oh, oh, give me a minute.
Really?
Yeah.
And how many hours and hours
have you had on that?
More than 30 quids' worth
of my life.
Now are you going to listen?
Yeah. Lesson learned.
Shan't do that again, sorry.
(SAD MUSIC)
No more family favours
or run-of-the-mill classics.
I need to start
setting my sights higher.
Much higher.
Well, I've had an idea for
a possible lead. Guy called Dean.
He got in touch with me
because he loves his cars
and he wanted to meet up.
When I say he loves his cars,
I mean he's totally nuts about them,
specifically Bentleys.
This that I've got,
I've had it for years.
I love it. It's absolutely
the Boggo Bentley of the 50s
and into the 60s.
The Bentley's he's got, you know,
they're hand built of aluminium,
incredibly rare.
I'm touting for business.
There's no getting away from it.
Oh hello, I think he's laid on
a bit of a show for me.
Dean, he couldn't resist it.
He's got some of his toys out.
I'll park here,
right in the middle of them.
That is a car.
Dean hello, how are you,
are you well?
Yes.
Really what I'm interested in
is how do I move
from where we are
to where I want to go,
which is a nicer class of car,
a nicer class of restoration
project, the big boy stuff?
You need a starting point,
you need to find
one of those cars
that fulfil that criteria.
Restore the car
and prove to the industry
that you've restored the car
in a professional manner.
I have a car,
that I'd like to show you.
I'm guessing
it's some sort of Bentley?
Absolutely. You've got it right.
Spot on.
And it's convertible.
Exactly. So what we've got here
is an R type.
That's a rare car?
Indeed.
How rare?
Well, they only ever,
as you can see it here and now,
made three.
One no longer exists.
So there's one other one than this.
That is a rarity.
That is the original seats there,
that's beautiful.
Exactly. It's been restored
to pristine condition
but kept original elements
that were always in the car.
This would be the ultimate
for our business model.
So that's your kind of unicorn car.
It's a brilliant thought, Dean.
Where's the other one?
So, I have exactly
the sister car of this one
that is in need
of restoration.
The other one of these?
The second one.
So, Richard.
Let's hope it's still inside.
Well, yeah. Ready steady,
here we go.
Oh my word.
(LAUGHS)
Still there.
It's tempting me.
Well, let's have a look,
can we have a look?
Can we disrobe it?
There's paint. There's paint on it.
Oh, the wood's not bad at all.
Oh my word!
If you are a car fan,
that's, like goosebump moment
when you find something
that's in this particular state,
un-restored, incredibly special,
I mean, rarer than rare.
Dean, what I need to do then
is find a way that me and my boys
can prove to you
that we could take this in
and turn it around into something
as beautiful as it needs to be.
Absolutely.
I'm not a man
that's often speechless,
but I'm pretty close
to it in here.
(LAUGHING)
Right, let's put it away.
God, I want a shot at that,
I so want us to have a shot
at that car. It's going to
come down to doing a job for him.
And I know he's jolly
and ha ha ha ha,
but yeah, he's no idiot.
He's going to need to see proof
that we're up to the job.
Back in Hereford,
our rather more modest classic
is turning out to be anything other
than the quick and easy project
I thought it would be.
This job has just become
a nightmare after nightmare
after nightmare.
The problem is he's promised this
car back for tomorrow morning
and we're nowhere near.
We've got to finish the prep,
get it primed, get it painted.
So, it's, it's going to be
a late night. Proper late night.
Afternoon, gentlemen.
Hello.
It's not painted.
The little Mini job?
Not little at all is it?
Didn't you not realise, seriously,
thathow much money
you spent on this car?
Everything on it, everything.
It's had brakes, it's had subframe,
it's hadremember the sills?
Sills, inner sill,
outer sill, 'A' panels,
door bottoms, discs, callipers,
even the fuel tank's rotten.
Are you cross?
I'm a bit worried,
to be honest with you because
Well, so am I, it's not done.
The problem is the bill is getting
close to what the car's worth.
It's probably going
to be four or five grand.
It's all about the value of the car.
If that was a £5000 bill
on a 100 grand car,
it wouldn't be a lot of money.
Alright, there are lessons
to be learned here.
I need to learn,
perhaps not to get carried away
and not talk to you
before I talk about a job
because sometimes there's more
to be done than I can see.
Get that. And I won't do it again.
Good.
To be honest,
we love him to bits
but you've got to make him see
it's not a game, is it,
it's serious.
If this was every day
this was happening,
you couldn't run a business because
you'd just end up falling out.
I wouldn't upset him for the world
but you've got to learn.
How long after being painted
can it go back together?
If you're lucky, 30 minutes.
It's getting on a bit now.
It's like ten o clock
and we're nowhere near finished now.
That wire's going go through
therethat channel there.
I really got my doubts about it,
but we are going to go flat out.
Come on. Ooh, well done.
We'll just do what we possibly can,
and that's all we can do.
Oh, yes.
(GENTLE MUSIC)
Oh, my god.
It's so shiny.
I can't believe
it's actually driving.
(LAUGHING)
Wow. Oh, my god.
There's no rust.
Ain't he lovely? Hello dogs.
Eh, voila.
Thank you very much.
There it is.
It does look really lovely.
So that's been,
you know, rejuvenated.
There's no cobwebs.
Well. There it is.
It looks amazing.
It looks so good.
Well, no point standing around.
We rebuilt it to drive.
So, drive it.
Take it. Shake it down.
That's what they say you know.
They say give it a shake down.
You, young people!
Seatbelts
But it still works exactly
as it used to. Don't bend it.
Bye!
That is proper satisfying.
That's very cute.
I'm pleased to get that done.
It's gorgeous.
Yeah. It's satisfying seeing
a little Mini on the road.
I mean, you had Minis,
you know what they're like?
Yeah.
They're lovely.
I loved my mini.
Floor it, baby.
Woo! Yippee!
You've just given them
the wedding car.
I have not given them
the wedding car!
Careful!
(LAUGHS)
After endless delays,
it's finally happened.
The new workshop building is up
and I can show it to Neil
and Anthony for the first time.
This is what we've been
trying to do all along,
this is the point
of this exercise.
Our new homeIt's enormous!
Blinking heck.
I've never had
a building you can echo in.
(IMITATES ECHO)
It is just vast.
To be somewhere like this now
is just unreal, it's just
a different world altogether.
This is you know, 10 times,
what I expected.
He hasn't let us down because this
is a fantastic workshop.
So where are we with layout?
What's going to go where?
The oven is four metres, innit?
That's without a paintroom on it.
So that's the oven.
That's the oven.
The other thing is you're going
to need some newer kit.
For the image and safety obviously,
but image wise, yeah.
Make you a shopping list then,
is it?
Yes, but we can't afford
to get this wrong
because we have to pay
for everything we put in it,
every wall, every door,
every tread of every stair, costs.
This could easily run away with me.
This could easily turn out to be
a very expensive folly
that I regret.
Right now I feel initially
a bit scared.
Then excited at the prospect,
this is what I've wanted
to do all along,
and then I feel scared again
'cause then I realise
to do this justice, to make it work,
to make it pay for itself,
I'm going to have to spend
a lot of money.
Yeah.
It's both the best game
I've ever played
and the most terrifying
potentially.
The single most important,
and most expensive,
piece of equipment in a classic
car workshop is the paint oven.
A second rate paint job
could ruin a top end restoration.
To save myself a small fortune,
we're taking Neil's old oven
with us, so Anthony's got
an electrician in to plan the move.
Ant, you about?
Hi Kev.
Hi mate, you alright?
Yeah, good thanks.
I really need you to have
a look over this thing
because it's going to be
moving now.
OK, so let me just turn it off
and have a look.
This spray booth
is an old spray booth,
which, when it's in here,
it's under old regulations.
Once you move it
to the new workshop,
it will then be under
all the modern regulations,
and as you can see
by the wiring, it wants a lot
of improving to comply now.
What you're saying that
it's going to cost more to do this.
It's going to cost a lot to do that.
You can't just take it from here
and put it in there.
But I'm more worried about the time,
it could be out of action
for two months.
Yeah, I can't do that.
This is our main machine
so its got to go in
and work straight away.
Have you thought about getting
a different one?
Er no. Cause this is the plan,
moving this.
I obviously didn't know this
was going to be an issue.
If you can get a new one,
it might be a lot more practical.
(PHONE RINGS)
Hello?
Hello, Rich.
Hello mate, how are you?
Errr. Yeah not too bad, um
I've got some news on the oven.
Yes.
Not in a good state, mate.
Apparently it would cost
a lot of money
to move it and make it
work in the new workshop.
How much more?
We're looking thousands.
So what are we saying?
Maybe getting a new one.
A new oven?
A new oven.
How much is a new oven?
You're looking 20 plus.
OK, alright.
I'm sorry to be
the bearer of bad news.
No, it's alright mate. Don't worry,
Bye.
Bye.
Good. Another crisis, love em.
If the oven's not working,
we're not working.
I mean I thought it might be
a few thousand to move the oven.
But twenty grand plus,
that's a different level of spend.
Right, I need to have
a serious think about this.
A few weeks ago, I bought this
Escort RS2000 for us
to restore to make
some quick money.
With the business racking up bills,
we need to get it done
and out the door.
Right, well, that bit was OK
until Neil started on it.
It's got to be done
because you've got to see
what you've got
and what you haven't
Chassis there has got a bit of
rot there, got a bit of swelling.
In all fairness,
all that's original.
I think it is just suffering
from rust more than anything,
which is typical
for any old Ford.
Drop it to the ground,
not on your father's head.
I'm nervous about asking this.
So was it a good buy, at £24,000?
I would say yes.
You can't beat originality
and that is all original.
This wants a bit of work,
but it's not a rot box.
That's a real relief for me to hear
because with this car we're not
waiting for work to come to us,
we're making our own work,
taking control of our own destiny.
That's right.
We'll turn this car out
how we want it to be
and we will sell it,
and we go for the sort
of 45 grand price point.
Even after we've paid for parts
and our own labour,
there'll be profit in this.
Yeah.
Right, plan.
Sorted. Get on with it.
Time to crack on.
The auction is in three weeks time
and there's tons to do.
I'm in Wolverhampton, because
I have got in the back of the car,
all of the interior
from the RS Escort,
because we cannot do that in-house.
The materials you're using
are different.
Leather, plastic, metal.
It's not the same set of skills
so these people that I'm going
to go and see are specialists.
Oh, we're here - this is us.
Can I show you my Escort seats?
I'm amazed how heavy
these things are.
Yeah.
Right. We'll take these to your
appraisal place and have a look.
Right, appraise. They're brilliant.
It'll only cost 20 pounds and you
can have them done in a day.
Yes, that's fine.
(LAUGHING)
OK, good. That's the biggest worry.
What's the verdict for these,
can you do them?
I'm going to attempt to re-stretch
and pull down
and I'm going to re-dye it.
Cause you can't just buy like
a repair set, can you?
It's one of the mysteries
of the classic car world
that these things
remain like unicorns.
Do you want to have a look
at the back seat as well?
Yeah, we can grab that.
OK, well, there are clearly
problems here, like it's gone.
Yeah, looks like
it's been chewed to death.
Yes. Can you repair them?
I'm going to call Ryan over,
our Ford magician
and he's going to explain
all this to you.
So from this,
your can tell what year the car
was originally manufactured.
So if you go across, W, 1980.
Good and more to the point,
what colour did it leave
the factory in?
I've got X8 is the colour.
Which would have been
a midnight blue.
So it was midnight blue from new.
So that's actually quite rare,
I think.
Yeah, it is.
They didn't make many
in midnight blue? No.
The trim is A7.
Originally, A7, I believe,
would have been black.
Would it?
Yeah.
Black and blue.
Very strange colour combination.
Who orders a midnight blue car
with a black interior?
I am conflicted here, I'm stuck.
I love originality,
but I just think beige.
Beige would be more,
a stand out colour.
Beige is a much nicer colour. Right.
Beige.
Decision made. Beige.
That's door cards
and everything, isn't it?
A good choice.
Right, it's beige, we're going
beige.
OK. Thank you gentleman,
you may carry on.
Beige, definitely beige,
oh, there's black.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
So, I've got the quote here,
£2,548 for the interior,
that's fitted.
So the car,
plus the interior,
plus other parts needed
come to about 31,
32,000 pounds.
Then there's the labour, which
I am going to take into account.
Let's call it £5000 worth
of the labour cost to the business.
That's the overall cost
of the whole car,
is 36,000.
If I can sell it for 45,
we're making money.
Well, this is the inner wing
off the RS2000,
and you can see all this
nasty repairs and all that filler,
just tons of filler
all clagged up in there,
it's just atrocious.
The idea was we were
going to repair the pieces,
but the deadline is looming
on this auction
so the best thing to do
is just buy some new panel
and get it welded up.
Otherwise it's never going
to get done.
There's going to be a lot more
welding involved
so I'm gonna have to draught
my brother Andrew in
to give me a hand
if we got any chance
of meeting any of these deadlines.
Neil'd better get that RS
ready in time
because I'm about to go on
a very scary spending spree.
I'm going shopping.
It's a big shopping trip
because I'm shopping
for the spray paint booth
for the workshop.
This is a really big step,
this is big news,
this is the heart of the business
because that's where
the paint is applied.
And it doesn't matter how good
a job we've done in fabricating it
and preparing it, if the paint
goes on badly, it ain't any good.
But part of this is also
signalling to potential customers
and to the classic car industry
that we're serious.
We don't have a serious oven,
nobody is going
to take us seriously.
It's got to be good.
It's going to be
an expensive day, just is.
Don't get carried away. Right.
So this is an oven,
are they all the same?
They are not.
This is our fairly basic sort
of booth, so it's rear extract,
if you want the booth
with the better performance,
you want the downdraught
for the floor.
Err, I've got the figures here.
So for your basic rear extract,
you're looking at about 20 grand.
For the basic?
For the basic, yeah.
For the four extracts, which
are the high performance model,
it's more like 50.
Right. It's much better, is it?
Yeah, the performance is
considerably better, yeah.
OK. How much more does
it cost to have windows?
You're looking at
11,000 pounds per window.
(WHINES)
Wow. I also need
a paint mixing room.
Paint mixing room,
we've got 6,000 there
for a paint mixing room
standard size.
So how much is a prep bay?
So for the prep room,
you're looking at 14 grand.
Um, alright.
I knew it was going to be
an expensive day out.
It's just a bit of a shock
because it's gone from,
well, a few grand
to move Neil's old,
as it turns out, out-dated oven
or 65 grands worth of kit.
But, it's worth it.
It's got to be the best,
hasn't it?
It's no good us
saying we're really good
if the kit's rubbish.
Shopping for paint ovens
and all the other big kit we need
was never
going to be cheap.
I'm hoping the sale
of the RS2000 will get us
some desperately needed
cash coming in.
The auction's only a week away
so Neil has called in
his body-specialist brother
Andrew to help get the job done.
How's it going your end?
It's coming but
got a long way to go.
Well, this is the trouble, you know,
the more you look, the more you see.
Well, it's got to be right.
It's got to be safe
and it's got to be right.
I don't physically see
how it's possible
to do all this work
and get it to a standard
where it's worth a lot of money
in such a short amount of time.
So we'll have to have a bit
of a chat about that, I think.
Chaps. Hello. Oh, look at all this.
Phew. Blimey, it's basically
a new front end.
Yeah, the problem you got with it
is this is the first job
we've done as the Smallest Cog
and if you do one really bad job,
your name is just no good.
This is being collected
next week for the auction.
If you two aren't prepared
to stand behind it
and say we did that
as the Smallest Cog,
if you're actually staring
at your shoes
thinking, "I know it's not right."
Put it this way,
if you get it really good,
you think it's really good,
you're rushing to auction,
doesn't sell. Anything you've done
you're not happy with,
you're going to do again,
so you might just as well
take your time, do it right.
OK. Decision is formally taken.
Is it, by us three here present.
We cannot, for a raft of reasons,
risk leaving this in the auction
because it ain't going to be there.
OK, I'm going to go
and have a little cry. Um..
Don't cry. A learning experience.
Can I ask that you don't take
your foot off the gas though?
No, no we won't stop.
Right chaps. Carry on.
Cook steady.
I knew that was coming.
Honestly it, um
That was
(GROANS)
The truth of it now,
um, we are literally going
to run out of money.
As in, there won't be enough
in the bank to pay their salaries
and to pay the rent, and then we've
got the huge expense of moving.
(TENSE MUSIC)
I'm an idiot.
It's as simple as that,
it's this capital bit
I hadn't thought of.
So the oven,
to get what we want,
it's going to be 45,000.
Then I need,
if I'm going to do that,
a prep room, that's going
to be another 15 grand.
Then we need the paint mix room.
That's another five.
So airlines, I'm going to put seven.
Keep it simple.
Then we need, just tools.
It's going to be 10 grand for
a full set of everything we need.
Right, so that's
£87,000 there.
Then there's the mezzanine,
that will be another 20, Right.
We're at 107,000 pounds.
That's a chunk of change.
Ah.
Well, 107,000 buys
what I need now.
It doesn't keep us going.
If we had got the RS ready
for the auction
..it wouldn't have raised that,
would it?
It might have 15 grand profit in it.
We'll need 10 times that.
But maybe that auction
is the answer,
maybe I don't take the RS,
maybe I sell my cars.
And then I put the money
into the business.
Well, it's a choice, isn't it?
I can have a classic car collection
or a classic car business.
And I've gone too far down the road
towards a business to stop now.
If I abandon it,
now I've ruined Neil and Antony,
'cause they've shut down
their business.
I'll do whatever it takes
and if what it takes
is selling my cars and bikes,
I will sell them,
because this is the path I'm taking.
This has been my home for 26 years.
Right?
Once your house is empty,
its not your home anymore, is it?
We need stuff
so I'm selling stuff to buy stuff.
Lot number five.
I actually can't watch it,
this is going to hurt.
43. 44.
They've just been singled out
to pay the ultimate sacrifice.
At 40,000 pounds
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