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#007 - Merlin McCormack - Duke Of London
287 Plays2 years ago
Today's guest is Merlin McCormack. Merlin runs Duke Of London, a classic car dealership situated in Brentford, London. The facility is a converted industrial unit and hosts over 60 businesses, from a Pizzeria, to a Pub. Duke Of London has become a firm favourite in the classic car community, hosting regular events and meetups, including a Drive-In cinema complete with servers on roller skates in the summer.
Join us as we journey through his remarkable path, from his very first car purchase at the tender age of 11, to steering the helm of a thriving automotive empire. Merlin shares the lessons he's learned along the way and the importance of delegation.
Discover what makes Duke of London stand out and what exciting ventures lie on the horizon for this iconic business. We delve into the plans for the future, the passion that drives their commitment to timeless automotive beauty, and the dedication to preserving automotive history.
Website: www.Dukeoflondon.co.uk
Instagram: @Duke_Of_London
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to perspectives. Today's guest is Merlin McCormack. Merlin runs Duke of London, a classic car dealership and restoration business situated in Breadford, London, which also includes a wine bar, pub, pizza restaurant, creative workspaces, and much, much more.
Building a Community around Classic Cars
00:00:21
Speaker
Merlin has become a prominent figure in the world of classic cars and built a community of like-minded individuals around an impressive industrial warehouse in London which has hosted events monthly including car meet-ups and even a drive-in cinema with 70s inspired servers on roller skates.
00:00:39
Speaker
Duke of London is a space like no other and Merlin is doing a fantastic job of inspiring the younger generations to take an interest in vintage cars and bikes and turning once overlooked vehicles into something cool and collectible again. So without further ado, Merlin McCormack.
Merlin's Background and Passion for Vehicles
00:01:13
Speaker
Perfect. Merlin McCormack, thank you very much for joining me on the show. It's really good to have you on. Thank you for having me. So I'd like to start with a little bit of history for my guests. So if people don't know who you are, who is Merlin McCormack or the Duke of London, as the Instagram handle says. So yeah, I'm Merlin McCormack. I am
00:01:38
Speaker
Born and raised in West London and I run a business called Duke of London. I don't refer to myself as Duke of London. I hasten to add. But yeah, Duke of London is kind of a multifaceted business that ranges from a classic car dealership and restoration business all the way through to F and B. So we've got a
00:01:57
Speaker
wine and cocktail bar, a share in a pizza restaurant, a Fuller's pub. And in addition to that, we have creative workspaces. So Duke of London London, some brothers got at the moment about 60 individual contained creative workspaces that are occupied by generally artists and small creative businesses. And yeah, so that's Duke of London. Perfect.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, I really like what we've done in the space. We'll get onto that in a bit, but I just wanted to start with... Firstly, Duke of London is quite a cool title, actually. I've tried to sort of take a bit of inspiration and coin myself the Earl of Wiltshire, but people haven't quite cottoned onto it yet, so I'll keep trying.
00:02:37
Speaker
So I understand your father was involved as a coach builder, he worked as a coach builder for a very long time for Ben Rolls-Royce and Madeleine Park Ward, is that correct? Yeah, correct, yeah. Do you think that's where your passion for
00:02:52
Speaker
wheeled objects and motor vehicles bikes and stuff like that came from yeah without a shadow doubt so dad has had a restoration business for my entire life and as you said he's uh trained professionally as a panel beta he started when he was 16 as an apprentice at man of the part ward on the factory line building at that point in time Rolls-Royce and Bentley Cornetias um he then very quickly progressed through the production line rankings and ended up as the final inspector
00:03:18
Speaker
when he was younger than me, looking after some serious stuff for all family stuff, et cetera. And he used to apply those skills to his own business, started up, I think he opened it on his 30th birthday, his business, and then kind of snowballed from there. So he's been going now for about 35 years on his own. And yeah, so being brought up around his workshop, somehow they spent there sweeping the floors and trying to earn some pocket money and whatever else. I think falling in love with cars was kind of inevitable.
00:03:46
Speaker
And my mum, away from my dad's business, also had an interest in cars. Her parents were very automotive orientated, and her dad was a team rider for AGS Motorbikes, a trials team rider, and things like that. So she had petrolhead blood as well. So she always had weird and wonderful cars when we were growing up, and between her and dad, yeah, it was inevitable.
00:04:07
Speaker
so my my parents had a couple of cool cars but i didn't realize they were that cool until i got to about this age no you don't and i was like oh i wish you still had that why did you get rid of she had like a 190 e uh dadhood like hers all right we're good cac class and she had an r129sl as well which was really cool and someone raised it off and i was absolutely gutted because i was there when someone raised it off someone she was parked up and someone drove into the back
00:04:31
Speaker
of the car as it was powered up on the side of the road in this sort of rural part of Sussex. And I was just horrible. I just saw it. It was always like... It's the worst feeling.
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's the worst. As kids, we were kind of like, you know, we were sort of, my brother and I were speaking for him, but we were a bit embarrassed always because we had that, you know, this sort of clapped out old cars until you get to an age where you really start to appreciate what these things are. But yes, it's funny how things change. When does clapped out become cool sort of thing?
00:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, quite. I don't think there's still a very vague line there. Yeah, 100%. Then you got your first car. I believe it was age 11.
Entrepreneurial Journey and Business Development
00:05:10
Speaker
Is that correct? Peugeot 205? Yeah, that was... That's pretty early to be getting a car. That was silly.
00:05:18
Speaker
It was I mean, I've been literally scripted saving I think I've probably get a lot of five or a day for sweeping desert workshop just to sort of keep me out of the way probably and we I say that some money and eBay was kind of new at the time People don't really know how to use it or what it was So when I caught wind of it, I was fascinated by it. I spent hours on the computer the internet I would have been with this have been 2000 and
00:05:45
Speaker
2003 or 2004. So I was fascinated with the internet and spent hours and hours on it researching cars, fanatical about cars and started to see that cars were starting to, I don't know whether they opened eBay up at that point in time to cars or whatever, but started to see there was stuff coming through.
00:06:02
Speaker
I was always searching for spares and repairs cars or scrap cars, because it would be something that might be listed as scrap, but it wasn't actually scrap. And lo and behold, I came across this Peugeot 205 that had been, it found its MOT for a steering rack. So the guy put it up there, just scrap Peugeot. So I clicked on that.
00:06:19
Speaker
Ran home. Mum, mum, mum, you've got to say this. And I think I pestered her into like, obviously I was too young to have an account or be able to bid on it. So I sort of forced her into letting me bid on this thing. I won it for 32 pounds of the penny and it was absolutely fuck all wrong with it. So it needed a new steering rack, but it ran and drove fine. It just had a bit of play in the rack. So we went to a scrapyard and Hayes got a new rack for it. One of my dad's mechanics helped us fit it.
00:06:42
Speaker
And it passed its MOT and off it went and that then became a kind of fascination of mine. And actually I felt like king of the world going to school on the Monday being like, I bought a car. Everyone thought it was bollocks. Like this kid's mental.
00:07:00
Speaker
but yeah, I don't think I quite the impact I'd hoped with my friends they were just like this kids weird and Yeah, this sold that for a profit and then carried on in a very loose way carried on kind of bouncing the ball and it snowballed into a business eventually Yeah, so I was gonna ask where the idea for Duke of London came from because I know you've obviously had a passion for cars for a long time and bikes and things like that but how did you that was there a sort of a standout moment to you that you thought actually I could really turn this into a business and
00:07:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think I spent a lot of my, certainly, this was obviously when I built the first car when I was 11, so it was a slow burn for the first three or four years, but by the time I started doing my GCSEs at school, I'd be given a laptop to use at school because I can barely read my own handwriting, let alone the teacher's, so I managed to get onto the school's Wi-Fi, which I was supposed to do, and just spent every lesson at the back of the classroom just trying to find cars to buy or motorbikes to buy or scooters or whatever.
00:07:55
Speaker
So I did absolutely no work, scrimmed through as predicted grades on my GCSEs. And by the time I hit sixth form college, it was like all I was doing. I might as well have not gone. I was truing because I was like running off to buy and sell. At that point it was 50 and 125 CC maybe because I could ride them, move them around myself with a CBT at that point, which saved me a huge cost of transport, which I'd incurred with all the cars up to date.
00:08:19
Speaker
So, yeah, Vespers and Ambrettas and things like that, and Jalera runners and all the chubby fun stuff too. So, yeah, I ducked out of college and really focused on it, but was still doing college two or three days a week. I managed to get myself into a place that I could do two and a half days a week at college and spend the rest of the time either working part-time jobs or focusing on the cars and the bikes.
00:08:41
Speaker
When I finished college, I started working in a short stint as a, do you know the first half of Walford Wall Street where it's really shit and they're like in a boiler room. It was basically working in a, it might as well have been a sort of penny stocks call center. It was called a private equity firm, but I think that was quite a jazzy way of looking at it. So I did that for a year, I was quite good at it.
00:09:04
Speaker
I absolutely hated it and started working for dad in a bit of a lost sense while still kind of brokering the odd card deal for a friend or selling my own bits and buy and sell and stuff. Dad has never wanted to or tapped into the side of his business where you had this bank of clients who eventually inevitably all become friends of his. It's a very kind of personable business. It's not the conventional way, any stretch of the imagination.
00:09:29
Speaker
And they would come to him saying lots of thinking of selling this or I'm looking to buy one of these and often he'd refer them to a dealer or a friend of his who had one and maybe make a kickback off of it or maybe not. I was like, you're crazy. You're wasting so much opportunity here. And I'm not saying you exploit these people, but equally, if you want to provide them a service, you'd be good at anything. So I'm not interested. And so we worked together on a couple of deals and.
00:09:47
Speaker
It very quickly became apparent to me that I really enjoyed it. People seemed to be trusting me with obscene amounts of money to buy the stuff for them or sell the stuff for them. I'm very happy with the service they were receiving, so I thought, fuck it, let's formalize this into a business. What's the worst that can happen? When Instagram launched, we were sat in probably in a lesson at school ignoring the teachers, as we often did, and my best mate at the time said, I'll go set mine up, whatever it was. I sat there for hours and hours. I watched a lot of Instagram, watched a lot of Instagram.
00:10:15
Speaker
I came up with Duke of London and I Googled it quickly to see who is the Duke of London. And there was a title was offered to Winston Churchill after the war, but he was too humble to accept it. So no one had ever been officially awarded this title. So with all the arrogance for 16 year old, I went, yoik!
00:10:35
Speaker
And yeah, so I figured at that point, we'd kind of start to grow the social media a little bit just out of fun and stuff. So I thought, well, let's exploit that, carry on running with the brand as it wasn't really a brand, but just the identity of it and name the business off of the Instagram. And yeah, about six months later, we took on our first premises, which was adjacent to my dad's workshop. And and then it just kind of grew arms and legs.
00:11:03
Speaker
I've seen so the Instagram handle things quite interesting because I've seen a couple that are actually Someone had at London, which I found out the other day like that's quite a good idea Yeah, yeah, I saw that game comes to our best is a really nice guy. Yeah He's lucked out. Let's become his life. It's amazing. Yeah, so I'd look at his account and
00:11:26
Speaker
And then there was another one I saw the other day on Instagram, which was, I thought was, I'd be in tears for a while. It was just ass, ass. And I was like, that's, don't really know what you're going to do with that handle, but fair enough. Great. Yeah. Good luck to you. Yeah. You got to do something with that shortly. Yeah. The London one is quite cool.
00:11:44
Speaker
So, I mean, I've, I've listened to a few podcasts and a few entrepreneurs and things like that. There's a lot of people that say going from like a salary job to launching your own business is like one of the hardest things they've ever done. But it sounds like for you, it was a bit of an easier transition in that you weren't really interested in the sort of corporate stuff before, the private equity stuff, really. Was that quite an easy transition or did you still think it was quite difficult to come away from that?
Transition from Corporate to Entrepreneurship
00:12:13
Speaker
i have a salary and now i'm kind of need to really work for it yeah i think it's been blunt i was so unhappy in that job that anything was better i mean i went from you know working in a barkley square office it was just like a mayfair office they're thinking it was jack the lad and everything and beers in the pub on a friday night and
00:12:34
Speaker
Did like grinding rust out of cars for my dad overnight and I was so much happier doing that with that than I was Working there kind of pretending to be someone that I kind of thought I wanted to be but I kind of been conditioned I think by the school environment and a lot of my friends who'd gotten straight to university where I I hadn't And that sort of felt like I was all
00:12:54
Speaker
in many ways, one step ahead of them. So I was like, oh, I've got the job you want when you come out of university and I'm only 18 and I'm Jack the lad. And it was like, actually, no, this is really shit. I don't think I've ever been so unhappy in myself. So anything away from that environment was going to be a blessing. And then to realize quite quickly that I could work for myself properly.
00:13:14
Speaker
And I was like, I'm sure I'm actually doing all right out of this. I'm living off of it. I'm not making the fortune, but I'm financially stable at a young age. Naturally, I was spending every penny that I made because I was young and reckless. I don't regret any of it, apart from some of it. But it was like, okay, well, maybe I don't need that corporate structure. Maybe I don't need the salary reliability. There have obviously been times where I've
00:13:41
Speaker
Cried at night wishing I'd gone down that route thinking shit this this would have been so much easier if But it's been such an adventure. I wouldn't take any of it back
00:13:51
Speaker
I think perfectionism holds a lot of people back as well in terms of they feel like they have to get to a certain stage before they pursue the thing they want to do. Same with this podcast. I was like, okay, I need to have the best camera set up. I need to have the best mic. I need to make sure I've got the best editing software and things like that. And there was a few times I listened to people and they just said, just get it out there. Just start.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I'm so guilty of that so many times and invariably it never gets the perfection point when I actually kick something off and I'm like, oh, what about that? And what about that? No one cares. They're like, obviously there's things in your mind and you start to realize, and even with the factory, the place that we exist in now as a business, there's so many bits of the building. I'm always embarrassed about it. Oh God. Cause we, we built this as a really short term thing. It was only supposed to last like 18 months. We've been here for five years. We've been really lucky with stay of executions before it's redevelopment and stuff.
00:14:42
Speaker
There's like bits of wallpaper, but all God we need to sort that and it was like nice charming It's like the quirks of the place. I'm like
00:14:48
Speaker
Okay. Maybe it is. It's funny though, because you're right with using the podcast analogy. It's so true. You're fearful of like, oh, people won't take me seriously without that. Or if I don't do this, until you put yourself out there and put your neck on the line, you won't know. And ultimately, if you do do that and you do half a decent job of it, people will respect you even more. I think the kind of grassroots element to it.
00:15:14
Speaker
I've been trying to think of like a way to describe that or sum it up and have you heard of the whole sort of I'm the main character kind of Yeah theory so I wanted to try and develop like a bit of a containerization for what that is Sort of like the main character theory that you think are everyone's gonna think you're a bit of an idiot You look like a bit of a dick you you everyone's think you're a bit cringe because you're talking on the camera You've got this podcast the reality Everyone's too concerned about what they've got going on their own lives. They might like
00:15:44
Speaker
have a look and get off. He looks a bit cringe but then they'll forget about it within half an hour. So you kind of just need to just get on with it anyways and that's the sort of approach I'm trying to take now and doing this and just exploring different things going up and asking guests if they want to come on and things like that.
00:15:59
Speaker
And I think it's helped. That's the only way to do it, right? No, fair play to you. I think it's a really cool thing that you're doing. And I don't think it's, certainly it's not something I, like I said at the beginning of this, it's not something that I would even know where to start with. So I mean, all of you, mate, it's a great thing. Keep it up. Well, thank you. Everyone says I talk too much anyway, so I thought I might as well put the... What perfect job for it, right? Exactly. I thought I might as well try and do something with it.
00:16:26
Speaker
that in a talent I got for just talking the hind legs off a donkey. So what do you think has been the biggest learning curve for you in terms of launching Duke of London to where you are now and obviously looking to the future for things you're going to do with scaling up, things like that as well?
Challenges in Business Management
00:16:43
Speaker
That's a good question. What's been the biggest learning curve? I think
00:16:48
Speaker
I think just from a very selfish perspective, perhaps it would have been better to try and master some of the art of delegation a little bit sooner. I think there's a big part of me that feels like I've aged exponentially and probably taken years off my life through fear of letting go of certain facets of the business.
00:17:09
Speaker
Some of it, perhaps, I've given myself a hard time and rightly so. Perhaps if I had a delegated thing sooner, it wouldn't have had the same effect or perhaps it would have impacted quality or the experience of the customers or whatever else. If I was to start again or to learn from mistakes per se, it would be
00:17:29
Speaker
delegate and obviously delegates the right people, which is a skill in itself, but to work out what your strengths are and not try and cover all bases. It was about three years before I actually even employed anyone else to do anything for me really. And that almost came not almost too late, but kind of it was getting to the point where I was
00:17:48
Speaker
Probably on the brink of burning out. I was like everything was under one kind of one brain and it yeah it was also limiting because there's only so much that you're capable of and that takes a lot of Humble pie to kind of stomach. I think you need to realize that okay fine that this is your baby and your whatever But you need to let go of some of it in order for it to grow. Otherwise, you're just gonna suffocate it and stunt its development but yeah, that was um, that'd be my kind of biggest advice to anyone else and
00:18:15
Speaker
Did you, did you take a sort of a pre and post, you know, like when the president is going to office and they take a photo of themselves on the enter versus where they leave, just to see how much you aged in that sort of way? I, funnily enough, I saw a photograph of myself from around the time that we opened the factory recently. And it was just crazy in such a short period of time to watch. It's almost like a flick book of watching it. Like I have probably visually, I feel outwardly like I've aged 10, 15 years.
00:18:45
Speaker
And I told people all day, there was like, oh, wow. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, that's like, yeah, cheers. Thank you. Much obliged. I think that's an interesting point with the delegation thing. And I think I would imagine a lot of people struggle with that, especially when they get to positions of management because they're used to building their own sort of.
00:19:07
Speaker
ideas and they know the quality of their work and it's it's almost like stepping into the unknown isn't it really because you don't know yeah you don't know what other people are capable of you kind of know but roughly from other people and things like that and their CV or whatever it is but you don't actually know if what they're going to do is going to be in line with your vision so I can imagine I could see that being that best I can see that being why it was was quite difficult for you
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's that it really just comes down to and I've got it. I've got this I think it's owning your mistakes as well because I've got this wrong a couple of times and it's not necessarily a reflection of these people in particular, but there's been times where I've got the kind of personal delegated to wrong and you kind of you miss
00:19:54
Speaker
your expectations of someone's can be misread. And I think also trying to understand someone, especially if you've just employed someone who's applied for a job, you don't know that. Like you're basing this all off of the way they've presented themselves and the way they want to be interpreted. And it's a tricky thing to try and, you know, act the HR department and try and root through to the person at the bottom. And ultimately we're not a big business. And I think as a small young business without any sort of financial independent backing or whatever,
00:20:22
Speaker
The other big part of it is the kind of cost associated with it because you've got a balance. Is this person, are you going to cover their own costs? But are you going to ultimately make the business more money by being here? Is it going to free up more time so I can go and develop other things and whatever else? That's impossible to quantify until you don't know until you've tried it. Much like starting a podcast, unless you start recording, how can you possibly tell?
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost like that funnel where you start as a wide, quite generic, and then you refine it as time goes on to kind of what you want. Yeah. So you spoke about having over 60 sort of businesses in Duke of London. It seems like you've built a pretty phenomenal sort of community around that.
Duke of London: Community and Diversity
00:21:04
Speaker
I've not actually been down yet. I've been meaning to go, but it's in Brentford, is that believe? You must, you must come. Is it Brentford? Yeah. Yeah, Brentford, in West London, yeah.
00:21:13
Speaker
So you said you got a pub, you got a wine bar. I've noticed obviously the whole car sales and stuff is classic cars mainly and bikes and things like that. I know you've got art on the walls that you sell and things along those lines. Is there a particular era that is either your favorite or that inspires you the most?
00:21:33
Speaker
I think to be honest it's a real tricky one. I'm really fickle with what I like and what I stock. A lot of it is stuff that both myself and the team appreciate. Every so often we'll get a car in and I'll be like
00:21:49
Speaker
God, why have you can sign that? Or vice versa. They'll be like, are you sure? You lost the plot. And I'm like, no, no, no, trust me. These are going somewhere. So it's really kind of personally subjective. I think we've got a real penchant for the naturally with the market trends of the stuff from the 80s and 90s at the moment. I still love the Korean post-war stuff. I love the Americana stuff, hot rods, custom cars, but it's not, yeah.
00:22:13
Speaker
commercially it wouldn't be viable I don't think at the moment sadly to just exist dependent on the especially the level of price point that we occupy which is generally 20 to 100 grand. It's a tougher sell, the cars are great but the market has dipped a bit there's no secret.
00:22:29
Speaker
We've got the means to go and be selective with what comes in. We've only got so much space here. We can't overstock ourselves and try and take too much risk because we've got a finite amount of space to occupy with these cars. So if we ended up stocking stuff that I just liked, we wouldn't make any money for anything. So we have to be a little bit open-minded. It's a tough call.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I like the the plonkers looks quite cool as well. It looks very sort of playboy-esque I would say with the
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's all Georgia's that Georgia very kindly designed that for us. And she's an amazing job of it. But you're right. It's it's got that kind of loose brief with like, I want it to feel like a first class 70s airport lounge. And she's absolutely nailed it. It's all like very kind of mid century soft furnishings and glowing curtains and lights. And yeah, it's really cool. She's done a really, really good job with it. The team that run it a phenomenal as well. Awesome.
00:23:33
Speaker
I've noticed there's a lot more automotive and sort of motorsport themed cafes and not so much bars, but cafes definitely that are popping up around the UK. So there's obviously Caffeine and Machine that was quite a popular one. I think there's a few in Sussex that I know of, like Fuel and Talk, I think. I've been down to a couple. I think Caffeine and Machine is pretty good. But I don't think any of them come close to what you're doing or what you're trying to do.
00:24:02
Speaker
Do you have any theories on why or what particularly sets you apart from the rest and the competition, so to speak, although there may not be competition to you?
Unique Approach of Duke of London
00:24:12
Speaker
I think about, to be blunt, I'm hugely in awe of what all of those guys have achieved. You're right, it is different to what we're offering, but they've absolutely nailed their own sectors. I think they're doing a really great job of it, and I'm so glad that these things exist, because ultimately it's all complementary to each other. The bigger the car community is, the more we all benefit.
00:24:31
Speaker
Where I think they serve as purpose-built cafes or you're driving destinations per se Obviously, we're a little bit different from that and I think that kind of is where we do differ in the the cult cut our face of it this place I want it to be more of a
00:24:48
Speaker
There's no pretense. It doesn't need to be, you can come in just with the family and the dog on a Saturday afternoon, you can come in to view a car, you can come in for a beat, so there's no angle. It's not, which as it's pros and cons, obviously, we only have enough space in the yard, the forecourt, the place to park on a busy day when we're open for business, maybe 20 or 30 cars.
00:25:10
Speaker
another event day up to about seventy if they're door to door so we're not we don't we don't have an abundance space either so we we know we couldn't exist here as a cafe machine type driving destination also we're in london they have people on other than people who are local or heading here for an event.
00:25:25
Speaker
I'm not expecting people to come here on a wild Cotswolds driving tour. It wouldn't happen. We're too far away and inside of it. But equally, we are in London, and there's this huge car scene here that isn't catered for. So, yeah, without it being exclusive to anybody, it is kind of London's clubhouse, the automotive stuff. I want it to be open to everyone, regardless of what car they've got. If they haven't got a car, they just want to come and appreciate stuff. Sometimes they're all well behaved and respectful. Come on in. With that, we've policed it quite well.
00:25:55
Speaker
I know that, sadly, Capital Machine have obviously had a lot of issues with people driving in the way they arrive and leave the venue and stuff, but we, because we're quite in a bit of an up area, we don't really have these issues. And it's been a little bit easier for us on that front, because we don't have the numbers coming and going. We don't have the queue of people still on the pavement, the car meets waiting for everyone to leave and stuff, because we don't allow it. So yeah, it is different, but kind of intentionally.
00:26:21
Speaker
Are you concerned at all about the impact of, I don't want to get political at all, but just to touch on it, the impact of EULEZ and things like that. Obviously there's a daily charge now for driving in London, which is fairly astronomical. Are you worried at all that's going to affect your business?
ULEZ Concerns and Future Plans
00:26:37
Speaker
I think the proof's in the pudding. We had like an anti-EULEZ drive out a couple of weeks ago on the last, the bank call in Monday, the very last day before it all kicked in in the extension zone that we're currently situated in.
00:26:48
Speaker
and it was well attended and everyone's of the same opinion the whole thing's a bit fast and whatever else and again not to get too political but I thought the only way that I'm ever going to do people go I want you worried do you know what are you going to do and I don't know I really do I need to be worried it will remain to be seen and we had our first we do a monthly car meet charity car meet on the third Sunday of every month on classics and cake
00:27:11
Speaker
where our first one on sunday and it was sold out and i've subscribed so i was like well they go i'm not gonna bother losing any sleep over this and the sad reality of it is is frankly local authorities know that we're just gonna pay it uh if we want to do it it's not great and it's it's ridiculous and the whole things are fast in my opinion it's
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah pinching the blue theoretically a worse off at the moment it with cost of living crisis and everything else so I'm totally opposed to it not opposed to cleaner air of course but the way that the schemes been rolled out is pretty deplorable. But the car enthusiast community thankfully was it will obviously cause a some drop offs.
00:27:48
Speaker
seemingly is still interested in coming here. And I was very careful with some note what was arriving last Sunday. Is it just stuff that's compliant or exempt? And it wasn't, it was the usual stuff, lots of 80s and 90s stuff. There's nowhere near compliant. The people are paying the 12, 550 because they still want to come. Yeah, obviously 12, 550 is a lot of money for some people, but to some people who want to come to our events, it might not be. So I'm hoping it doesn't deter too many people. But I am sad for the people who now will take a stance on it. But unfortunately, it's something that we personally can do about that.
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair enough and it's like the there's a stoic saying where it's like don't Don't punish yourself before something happens and it sounds like you've kind of taken that approach way Don't worry about it. Don't suffer in the anticipation of something that might not or not happened. What's the point? Yeah, it was the point. Yeah, I was obviously secretly quite nervous about it. But yeah, thankfully I've seen touch wood one event in I can't base it all off on event either but so far so good. Yeah, I
00:28:45
Speaker
So is there anything in the pipeline for Duke of London next that you can discuss? There may be something that you can't discuss, but be interested to know.
00:28:55
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple of sort of top secret bits, but they'll come to light soon enough, I'm sure, in the nearest of futures. We've got loads of events going on over the course of the autumn and winter. We've been given a stay of execution for the 10th or 11th time, which I'm very, very grateful for to our developer who, the developer of Redis Building, our landlord,
00:29:20
Speaker
they have given us until at least mid-March here so we're going to make the most of the last potentially the last six months that we have here we may roll on again that at the moment i'm kind of bookmarking that in my head that that could be d-day um and with that they've also incredibly um
00:29:38
Speaker
I think it's been an incredible kind of journey with them. We've got a great working relationship with them and they can see I think the value of having the community of the businesses here and the attraction of the footfall and everything else. So together we've designed a new permanent home for Duke of London with the current landlord of this place in a new building that's about 500 meters away from the current building.
00:29:58
Speaker
long lease so we don't have to worry we can actually plan for the future we're not no longer on a three-month rolling term which has caused many a sleepless nights over the last four or five years so yeah that should come it should be opening at the end of March that's that's the plan we get in there beginning of the new year and start our fit out and yeah really excited it's a space that's purpose built for cars the building we're in at the moment is an old factory it was never designed to have vehicles driving in and out of it it's an absolute nightmare to get stuff in and out of
00:30:26
Speaker
uh we make it work it looks cool but logistically it's a massive headache for me and the staff and we spend half our day moving cars the new place it's a really cool space right on the river that sort of triple height concertina glazing overlooking the river with our own forecourt again on the river the f&b stuff so the cafe
00:30:44
Speaker
restaurant will move over there and in the summer we can open up and have seating outside and people can bring their cars down still and yeah it's gonna be really cool we're expanding our storage space so we store cars for people with doubling our footprint for that within that building as well and we're doing it all to a different standard and obviously we did this place on a temporary basis so
00:31:03
Speaker
I'm really, really excited for that. But around what else we've got going on, around Christmas time we're opening a pop-up store here, so a merchandise pop-up store. So we're teaming up with some really cool brands that I think are in line with what we're doing. I feel that you'll know and recognize no doubt and all kind of loosely automotive themed and we're going to open a physical shop over Christmas as a bit of a proof of concept and pretty transparent about these things. If it works, then we'll carry the concept over into the new space on a permanent basis.
00:31:29
Speaker
I think it should be quite good because the types of people and the brands that we're working with don't actually really have a tangible presence in London. But they're all very well appreciated by the car community far wide and some of the base in the States and Europe and stuff so they don't really have much for foot holding here. So hopefully this will open there.
00:31:46
Speaker
horizons up on a bigger level as well. I'm excited for that. Georgia's about to crack on and design the interior of that and then the car park as well so she's very busy for us obviously doing her own thing as well but grateful to her for all of her hard work and help because her kind of vision of the aesthetic is kind of very heavily influenced by you know plonkers and things like that so I'm looking forward to carrying that over and seeing how she develops that.
00:32:10
Speaker
But yeah, that's where we're at. That sounds amazing. I'm really excited to see what you do with the new studio, the new sort of space. Does that mean you're going to have boats as well when you have the on the riverfront? We'll see some boats set around in the showroom as well. I'd love to.
00:32:27
Speaker
80's cigarette racing boats or something that would be like the dream just like mounted on the banks of the river but yeah annoyingly it's like a 30 foot drop at low tide and a 15 foot high tide drop from our terrace onto the river so I don't know how well we're going to get a gloating pontoon down there just have to fashion something out of some old barrels or something like some lifeboats instead yeah literally
00:32:50
Speaker
Have you still got your little boat? I know you did like a jps sort of little wooden one and I've seen you a few summers. Yeah but I was cruising down the river. Yeah. So George and I bought a wooden one that was used to be my dad's when we were kids. We never went on the water and he just had it sat in the yard behind his old workshop. We played it and pretended we were on the water and as kids. George and I bought that about five years ago. That's almost five years later nearly restored. We put it on the water for one summer and then took it off and had the whole deck redone.
00:33:16
Speaker
um kind of don't buy a boat they just just don't do it they're horrific even cars are bad um and then i built this little i bought a 12 foot 70s 80s 80s Fletcher fiberglass speed boat as well little outboard on the back and we painted it all up and delivered it up as a jps kind of cigarettes by a boat
00:33:37
Speaker
I sold it to a couple of guys who had it a couple of years and I only recently just bought it back. I'd planned to have the wooden boat ready for this summer but it wasn't so I ended up buying this thing back. They're worth, none of these things are worth any money of any note whatsoever. They're just like pocket money boats but I love them. They're so much fun. We get to bounce up and down the Thames on it. Yeah, it's good fun.
00:33:56
Speaker
It's not always about the price, so I think with a lot of things, I'm popular. No, I know. When you start talking about boats. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm quite heavily involved in the watch community and things like that. So I am part of a group where you go and kind of meet every... They normally have something on at least once a month. It's called Red Bars. I don't know if you've heard of it at all. Yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker
uh so they've done some sort of events around London and you do stuff at boutiques but then they do want to like just go into the pub and meet it up people get to show their either latest purchases and things like that and some people come in with 100 pound watches some people come in with 100 grand watches and everyone's curious to see what everyone's got there's no sort of element of snobbery or anything like that so i think it is quite nice you can get a lot of enjoyment i guess the point i'm trying to make is you've
00:34:46
Speaker
You can get a lot of enjoyed amount of things without spending a huge amount of money, which I think is a common misconception people have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. EVs. What's your, what's your opinion
Views on Electric Vehicles
00:34:56
Speaker
on those? Because I know there's some interest that I've seen doodads, obviously Luna's design, they've done some pretty
00:35:02
Speaker
Pretty cool stuff. And when I spoke to them at the concourse, they had some interesting reasons for doing it. They said they weren't taking cars off the road to convert them. They were saving cars that were destined for the bin, effectively. But then there's also, I think you feel quite strongly about a certain Ferrari that's been converted to... No comments.
00:35:23
Speaker
to an EV, which I saw a good with. But yeah, I'm just interested in your general consensus on the whole thing. I think on the more conventional EVs, your Tesla's and Hyundai's and stuff, I think obviously it serves a purpose. I can't help feel like there's an element of once removing the problem at the moment,
00:35:45
Speaker
While the whole power network for it is still fueled by fossil fuels and everything else I mean and especially the manufacturing process for both the cars and the batteries and the kind of disposable nature the shelf life of the cars themselves It's a bit farcical I think there is obviously
00:36:02
Speaker
this is going to take time to adjust and develop and there will come a point where hopefully the grid can rely on more sustainable energy sources and it can truly be a greener alternative and with that the build quality of these cars should hopefully be improving the technology advance in such a way that they can be developed and adapted not just at the end of a three-year lease essentially thrown in the bin you're seeing like a 2015 Tesla now you can't give them away the batteries are out people won't stand by them you can't get warranties and things and
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah, I'm paraphrasing, but the general gist of it is all heading in a pretty negative direction It's like a new iPhone every year. We don't think twice about doing it. We never really think about the implications of yeah Ecologically of what we're doing because it's not being sold to us as a green product
00:36:45
Speaker
the whole hypocrisy for me at the moment about the EVs is like, well, you're branding this up as something that's going to be beneficial to the environment. And yet we're here again in a two, three, four year lease going, okay, cool, there's the keys back next. There's no cognitive association with what then happens to that car in all real care.
00:37:06
Speaker
Again, it's generalizing massively here, but you get the gist. I think going forward the Banford's development of the hydrogen stuff is probably where I would hedge my bets. I think there's going to be far more seemingly if it goes according to plan as it goes seemingly so far for them. I think that's a far more
00:37:26
Speaker
obviously sustainable route of production. And then onto the classic converted stuff. I think if you're right, if they're taking stuff that's destined for the bin, then fine. Or if it's something that perhaps isn't defined by the character of its petrol engine, great. I'm thinking something like, yeah, I love driving them for the fact they're a peppy little engine, but like an old Fiat 500, or a Fiat Joly, for instance. Turn that electric, great. I totally get it. Little small journeys, whatever. But yeah, to touch on the sensitive subjects of the certain Ferrari, then,
00:37:56
Speaker
I drove a Porsche that had been converted and I was... It was very well built, beautifully designed and I know they're doing commercially very well with it and I totally get it. But I couldn't personally help but feel like, right, where's the soul? It still drove well, it's fast, it was whatever.
00:38:26
Speaker
I'm still looking for more. I'm like, well, where's the, I want to hear it. And I'm, I'm a complete, and I said like, Asbo Yob for like loud exhaust as well. So I'm like, I don't want something sympathetic for God's sake. I don't want some artificial exhaust, not even in a petrol car where you've got people beaming sounds through the speakers. And then you've got these things that are silent and let's be real, in a classic car, you can invariably then hear every creak rattle of shake they all had every way, but has been masked by the sound of the engine. Like my testosterone effect, if that was silent, I know it would sound like a bag of fucking nails, but I know. Yeah.
00:38:56
Speaker
I've not I've not right now because you can't hear it I'm not concerned yeah I like it yeah definitely the old defender defender rattles that you got going on in your tester also yeah yeah I understand what you said about the smoke and mirrors almost isn't it and I'd quite like to get someone who's in the industry to
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah, I'm of the same opinion because it's it's not just the emissions from the car you're looking at the lifecycle the whole car you've got batteries to mine batteries to dispose of you've got where's the power generation of everyone's driving an electric car that
00:39:45
Speaker
come on the podcast and just expand on some of these points.
00:39:49
Speaker
energy demand on the grid is going to go up. My house is being produced. Well, if you've got renewable sources... It's not at the moment, you know. And the wind's not blowing. You're going to have all the sort of mass wind turbine farms that are going to need to be built. And they've only got like a limited efficiency and they're quite weather dependent and things like that. So yeah, I would be really interested to see from someone who's in the industry who's quite heavily involved with it.
00:40:15
Speaker
I think Andy, trying to get Andy Palmer on would be quite the thing as well. So he was used to being the CEO of Smarson in his home, and he's quite heavily involved in that and quite a big advocate for EVs. So I think he would be quite a good person to get on. So what's your space? I don't know if I'm big enough to get everyone, but we'll see. Aim high, man. Don't ask, don't get it, do you? You lie. Absolutely.
00:40:36
Speaker
So in terms of events coming up, what are the key events that people should come and have a look at, come and get down to?
Upcoming Events at Duke of London
00:40:44
Speaker
Where can they find out more information? Yeah, so in the very near future of this Sunday, we're hosting, really proud to be hosting the Distinguished Gentleman's Drive start route for London, West London 1. So we've got all the guys come out in their pre-80s cars, we'll dress to the nines, guys and gals. And then we're doing a drive out to the Bromont factory in Henley.
00:41:03
Speaker
And then going forward, we've got loads of, we do lots of parties and themed events here with the Blanca's Bar and collaborate with them on that. So we've got a big Halloween party coming up. We've got a big end of summer party at the end of this month, next Saturday. And then on the third Sunday of every month, continually, we've got our classics and cake meats. So from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., doors are open. It's 10 pound a ticket per car and it all goes to charity.
00:41:28
Speaker
And yeah, we just encourage everyone to come down to bring their cars down. We're very loose on the categorization of what's eligible or not. Some of everyone's well behaved with it really fast, but generally it's something classic or modern performance car, something interesting too. And then we do the Porsche night every other month.
00:41:50
Speaker
We're organizing a big driving tour for flat 12 Ferraris in a couple of weekends time. So 365BB, 512BB, Testroster, 512TR, and 5.2Ms. So we've got a nice uptake on that. And yeah, always niche and weird and wonderful things going on. We've got a link on our website. It's just jukeoflondon.co.uk where everything's publicized on there. And there's a calendar on there of the events that get rolled out usually a month or two in advance. And then on socials as well, we share everything on there.
00:42:19
Speaker
So I put the Instagram and the website in the comments below on the sort of podcast notes. Cool, thank you. Final question, Dreamcar, do you have one? It sounds like you live in the dream at the moment anyways. Yeah, it's been a tricky one. There's a few things that I would like to do and build and whatever, but
00:42:42
Speaker
I think I'm quite content. I think one car that really has thrown me on such that already was the Testarossa. I didn't, I kind of thought, yeah, this can drive like a sack of shit and it'd be funny for five minutes and I think they're cool looking and that's it. I've genuinely bonded so much with that car. It's the one car that I've got now that I'm like, oh no, if I'll ever sell this, um, it's yeah, maybe you might have to one day or whatever, but right now I'm like, I'm really
00:43:06
Speaker
Gotta dig in there. I'm a lot more than I ever thought I would and it's funny because a lot of people who have driven them for a beer I drove one of those once they're terrible or whatever versus people who've actually owned driven and living with them live live and lived with them and They're all kind of the same camp. They're like, yeah, there's something
00:43:23
Speaker
Kind of cool and special about it. They are like awful to drive on paper But I don't know it's just like really cool and charming about it. So that's right now. I'm pretty happy with that Yeah, I've got any big ambitions at the moment trying to focus on the move and building the new place So that's probably saving my bank account as well
00:43:42
Speaker
in many ways and also hindering it in others but yeah yeah have you seen the one the tester of said that i think he's a japanese chap mad lane kazuki i think his name is yeah he's put it on like he slammed it on air ride and yeah i think he's deep dished to wheels and things like that just it looks like a cartoon it doesn't look real yeah i get air ride but
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah. Again, certain aspects, but I think that one is quite cool. Yeah, it is very cool. I like the color of yours as well. Thank you. But yeah, the Japanese one, it looks almost like a CGI drawing or some sort of a cartoon sketch. Fair play to him. Merlin, thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciated the effort and input. No, thank you for having me on. I really enjoyed it.
00:44:49
Speaker
you