Just so you know Ant Anstead: The Naked Mechanic, Thursdays from 24 October, 9pm on Quest and stream on discovery+
We can’t wait, we’ve always enjoyed his work and this really is a very high concept…
Master mechanic Ant Anstead returns to his car restoration roots in Ant Anstead: The Naked Mechanic (8 one hour programmes) and this time, it’s personal. Turning a ramshackle old barn into his workshop, Ant will need all his skills to bring vehicles including a Lotus Elan, Land Rover Series 3 and VW Campervan back to life. But the cars aren’t the only restorations he’s taking on. His barn workshop is part of a dilapidated 500-year-old farmhouse that he’s just bought for his parents to retire in. To help fund the house renovation, any profit Ant makes from the cars will go towards his mum and dad’s dream home. But he can’t do it all alone. He’s roped in family and friends to help tackle this double whammy restoration. What could possibly go wrong?
Free Car Mag: Quite a lot and although I like the sound of all this, what’s keeping me awake at night is that the classic car market is not in the best of health.
Ant Anstead: It is worse than that, I bought the house realising that it was a renovation, but I didn’t think that it was going to be a substantial one. So I had a somewhat rose tinted view, thinking that we could get it fixed up in a few weeks, not realising that it might just be a catastrophic 500 year old falling down farm. I was committed to it and then decided, why don’t I do what I do best? That’s basically fix up some cars. There is a barn on the farm, so I decided to make use of that. From the date on which I bought the first car to now the market has slumped. We do eight episodes and eight cars and not all of them make a profit. A couple of them we certainly do lose money on. That’s how bad it was.
Ant Anstead
Free Car Mag: Why is called the Naked Mechanic? That might concern some viewers before the watershed.
Ant Anstead: I can reassure you that clothes will be worn. The term naked refers to the behind the scenes, lift the curtain approach to doing things. That’s the really cool thing about this show there is no production team, I turn up every day and do what I do. I just say ‘if you want to join me and press record, that’s fine.’ For that reason nothing is staged, there is no drama, or jeopardy. Also the choice of cars is very cool. We bought an MG Midget for £1000 and it is hard to make any profit on that, but we managed to. What this programme made me realise is, this isn’t designed to be a business model. I need to make a profit, but mainly it was great to come back to the UK, get back to a dusty dirty old barn, plus all my family are here. I mean, I haven’t spoken to my brothers in twenty years.
Free Car Mag: There is a Triumph Dolomite Sprint in the programme, isn’t that a model with some well known issues and a bit of a worry?
Ant Anstead: A Triumph is not something which necessarily starts on the button, also it will rust. But one of take homes from the show is that if you buy the right project, things can go well. There is a statistic which amazed me, it’s that 80 per cent of current projects will never get finished by their current owner. There are a lot of reasons why that might happen, which is why there are a lot of Triumphs in the hands of people who will never fix them. Yet the infrastructure surrounding Triumphs are great. Excellent club, parts supply and everything you need is available, also I found them quite straightforward to work on. This Dolomite needed quite a bit of welding which is not a surprise, but a great engine fitted with Webers and quite fast.
Ant Anstead
Free Car Mag: What is it that you would like viewers to learn from the programme?
Ant Anstead: I get a lot of people stopping me when I am out and about who will say, because of one of your programmes it inspired me to get a mini, or MG. That’s why we have gone for really accessible and humble, but well supported cars. We are not spending loads of cash and we are doing things that are achievable by most enthusiasts. I have also tried to approach this from the best way to make some money. There is also no fancy equipment, just standard hand tools, which I am using whilst laying on my back in a dusty barn. I am in a very privileged position where I have a white floored state of the art workshop in California. This has been the polar opposite and I absolutely loved it. Effectively I have been back in my seventeen year old skin rolling ,around on a dirty floor welding an MG.
Free Car Mag: Keeping it real then?
Ant Anstead: This is my 26th TV show, hands down this is the most personal, these are not actors these are my parents. This is very real.
Free Car Mag: What is your view on Electric Cars?
Ant Anstead: I love them. I was chatting earlier on today about how long they have been around. I mean in 1890 there were electric taxis operating in London with charging points. A few weeks ago I went to Washington DC and spoke to Congress. Governments are telling people that they must go electric and I think they are wrong, you need a multi-fuel option whether it is hydrogen, electric, gasoline. I also believe that humans are incredibly clever and there is probably a power source, that has not yet been discovered.
Free Car Mag: Are classics under threat?
Ant Anstead: I don’t believe so, the car sector is one of the most buoyant and loved in the world. No one is going to say that we are done with those classic cars. There will always be humans driving cars. A type 35B Bugatti will still be driven in a thousand years time.
