FEATURE Image credit: Gwen Shabka
Brentford
MEANWHILE IN
It might look like a building site, but there’s a lot happening Brentford has looked dreadful for years. Locals have become inured to the boarded up buildings and huge hoardings everywhere but unless you knew Brentford well, you’d think that’s all there was.
expanded quickly. He works with his brother Algy, a talented metal worker, and his father Lance, a Classic car restorer, who each have their own businesses on the site.
The Brentford Project is now under way, with phase one of the new town centre being built, as witnessed by the towering cranes overshadowing the hoardings. Phase two, the old soap factory in Catherine Wheel Rd (aka the Blue Road, since it has been painted blue) is full of ‘meanwhile’ businesses – a cluster of cool, arty places which have sprung up in the old industrial landscape, happy to take a short-term lease in scruffy accommodation until the time comes to demolish the lot.
There’s a huge appetite for Vintage cars, Merlin says, which is currently under served in west London. He’s created a classic car hub, a destination for owners to come and socialise, eat pizza, hang out and talk about cars. The Porsche owners club meets once a month, buying a £10 ticket to raise money for charity.
The McCormacks The McCormack family are at the centre of operations in Catherine Wheel Rd. Merlin McCormack, 27, started his Vintage car business in 2014 with car show rooms in Lionel Rd before the Brentford Community Stadium was built. As the diggers moved in they shifted the vintage cars to the old soap factory in Brentford and the business has
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Merlin bought his first car at the age of 11, a Peugot 205 that had failed its MOT, which he bought for £31. His mother Annie had to go and pick it up for him. He got it done up and sold it on for £500 and acquired a taste for the car trade. Annie used to run an estate agents in Ealing, but now runs The Brewery Tap, a Fuller’s pub a couple of hundred yards away from the car showrooms, which she took over in November 2019, bringing it to life with an eclectic mix of live music and good food – Santa Maria pizzas.
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