In a quiet corner of Brentford’s docklands, inside a cold, unapologetically honest 19th-century industrial building, there is a workshop that feels less like a business and more like a living archive. This is Romance of Rust, founded in 1990 by Lance McCormack, a man who describes himself, only half jokingly, as “a refugee from the Industrial Revolution.”
Now celebrating half century in the restoration world, Lance’s career spans the final golden age of British coachbuilding to today’s digital era. Yet Romance of Rust is not simply about restoring cars. It is about preserving knowledge, form, language, and a way of life that is fast disappearing.
Forged at Mulliner Park Ward
Lance’s philosophy was shaped early. On his 17th birthday in 1976, he walked into Rolls-Royce’s Mulliner Park Ward division as a traditional panel beater apprentice. “It was more like a training camp,” he recalls. “Run with a very military doctrine.” Turning up with peroxide hair didn’t help, but the discipline stuck.
Those formative years instilled codes of practice that still define Romance of Rust today. Mulliner Park Ward was Rolls-Royce’s last true coachbuilder, producing Corniches and Phantoms by hand. The emphasis was on precision, responsibility, and respect for material. These values, Lance says, never leave you.
After completing his apprenticeship, he deliberately stepped away from cars, spending several years in Roehampton making artificial limbs. Under the guidance of sculptor Roy Rasmussen, he learned human form, proportion, and empathy. “It was like being an armorer,” he says. “Learning shape for a reason.” Those lessons would later surface in metal panels as much as in sculpture.
Rolls-Royce eventually asked him back. From there, Lance worked his way up to become the youngest ever Rolls-Royce final inspector, responsible for the quality of every finished Corniche and Phantom before it left for dealers worldwide. “That teaches you accountability,” he says. “You own the result.”
Cars as Cultural Artefacts
That sense of responsibility underpins some of the most significant vehicles Lance has restored. Among them is John and Yoko’s white Phantom V, a car deeply embedded in cultural history. Lance was entrusted with the bodywork, a task closely aligned with his original training on Phantom VI models.
Other projects pushed boundaries further. Planet Voodoo, the famed chopped Mercury, stunned audiences from the Louis Vuitton Concours d’Elegance onward. The Alchemist, a full-concept Gasser hot rod, is widely regarded as one of the finest ever built in Europe. “Not just because of my involvement,” Lance says carefully, “but because everything about it was thought through.”
For Lance, restoration is not nostalgia. It is interpretation with restraint. “You have to understand what the car is meant to be,” he explains. “And then you don’t lie to it.”
A Workshop Steeped in History
Romance of Rust has always lived in old buildings: stables in Ealing, a forge near Brentford Stadium, and now another former stable by the docks. “When cars were first made, they were kept where horses were kept,” Lance notes. “There’s a lineage there.”
The space is cold in winter and unforgiving, but it matters. Over 80 specialist hammers line the walls. Traditional machinery hums alongside skeletal cars mid-resurrection. Vintage signs hang against exposed brick. “It represents living history,” he says. “Not comfort.”
Beyond the Automobile
What truly sets Romance of Rust apart is its reach beyond cars. Lance has created film props including Captain America’s shield and the pre-CGI mirror for Snow White and the Huntsman. He has restored specialist environments for an official Rolex restorer and collaborated on architectural metalwork, most notably, Lance worked alongside his son Algy on a hand-formed copper cocktail bar for Michelin-starred restaurant HIDE in Piccadilly.
“That bar will outlive all of us,” Lance says. Wheeled entirely by hand, patinated copper topped with a massive slab of yew, it is less furniture than permanent sculpture. “Even if the restaurant disappeared, it would be sold as living art.”
Language matters to him here, too. “I’m not a fabricator. I’m a panel beater,” he insists. “These names carry meaning. If we lose the words, we lose the tradition.”
Passing It On
Education is central to Lance’s ethos. He regularly teaches MA and international students from the Royal College of Art, guiding product designers, sculptors, and automotive designers through traditional metalworking. Some have gone on to roles at Bentley Motors and Louis Vuitton.
“If someone asks, ‘Can I make this?’ I say, ‘No. But I can show you how,’” he says. “You mustn’t be mean with knowledge. Someone gave it to you.”
That philosophy extends to family. His eldest son, Merlin, founded Duke of London, now one of the UK’s most influential classic and supercar hubs. His younger son, Algy, left university to train under his father, becoming a highly skilled metalworker in his own right. “They’re completely different,” Lance says. “The hare and the tortoise. And thank God for that.”
A Living Craft
In a world of automation and digital fabrication, Lance remains unapologetically analog. “I don’t wake up thinking about buttons,” he says. “I think about breakfast.” Yet he does not reject technology. He believes craftsmanship augments it.
“To be a craftsman isn’t a job,” he reflects. “It’s your daily existence.” And after decades
where traditional makers felt obsolete, he sees a shift. “We’re being respected again. Not replaced. Included.”
Romance of Rust is not about resisting progress. It is about grounding it. About metal shaped by eye, ear, and hand. About passing on skills that still, after half a century, put bread on the table and meaning in the work.
Odds are, you’ve already seen Lance McCormack’s work. On screen. On concours lawns. In the curve of a panel or the gleam of copper. You just might not have known where it came from.
That, perhaps, is the romance of rust.
