The cameras follow Tom Hartley, Derbyshire's self-styled "car connoisseur", as he buys and sells Ferraris, Bugattis and classic Astons from a rural showroom. Hartley has shifted £180 million of metal in three decades and keeps no computer records, trusting instinct over spreadsheets. Across the programme he fields calls from sheikhs, brokers a £1.2 million McLaren P1 sale and tries to move a yellow Lamborghini Countach that once belonged to Rod Stewart.
Adam Stott, a former nightclub promoter turned Essex super-car dealer, competes for the same clientele. His sales floor is a floodlit warehouse where twenty-somethings in Louboutins test-drive 200 mph machinery they may never afford. Between them, Richard Biddulph scouts barn-finds in the Home Counties and Sheik Amari imports fresh stock from Dubai, creating a closed loop of rare metal that rarely leaves private hands.
Narrator Miles Jupp supplies dry asides while the traders negotiate in £50,000 increments, yet the real tension is watching men who already own everything still haggle over floor mats. When Hartley finally closes the P1 deal with a handshake and a promise to deliver the logbook tomorrow, the commission equals the average UK yearly wage. One series, four episodes, no repeat commission: Channel 4 quietly parked the format after December 2015.
Production Details
Channel 4 / 1 Season / 2015
Producer(s): Jayne Edwards, Guy Gilbert
Main Cast
**[Tom Hartley
Miles Jupp](/tag/tom-hartley-miles-jupp)** as narrator
