7:00 am, October 21, 2026
Duke of London is not your typical supercar dealership and its boss Merlin McCormack is certainly not your typical car dealer.
Working for Car Dealer, I’ve crossed paths with a number of supercar dealers over the years, from suited and booted motor trade royalty like Tom Hartley to the slick operator that is Tom Jaconelli at Romans International.
However, I have never met another premium retailer quite like the self-proclaimed ‘Duke of London’ himself, Merlin McCormack.
Arriving fashionably late for our meeting at his firm’s Brentford HQ, it was immediately clear that this is a man unafraid of doing things a little bit differently.
Everything from his hipster dress sense to his pet Chihuahua, Squirrel, is almost the complete opposite of a Tom Hartley but there is one thing the duo certainly share – a passion for cars.
‘My dad’s got a restoration business that he’s run for the duration of my whole life,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been brought up around doing classic car restoration and a few other bits too.’
That passion has helped McCormack build a business that combines high-end car sales with storage, hospitality and events – all under one roof.
He opened his first showroom at Christmas 2014, aged just 20, with a seven-car unit on an industrial estate in West London.
Rented from Brentford Football Club, the premises were only ever going to be temporary, with the land earmarked for the club’s new GTech Stadium, which eventually opened in 2020.
During the year he spent there, McCormack began hosting car meets, parties and events, turning the small showroom into a destination for enthusiasts.
It was an idea which grew legs and when the business was forced to move, McCormack took on a larger site and brought a collection of automotive businesses with him, including mechanics, detailing specialists and his father’s restoration operation.
The next step was even more ambitious: a 50,000 sq ft former soap factory that had been abandoned for more than 20 years.
‘I definitely didn’t know what I was getting myself into,’ Merlin admits. ‘I took on more than I could chew for sure, but it was an adventure,’
The site became a mixed-use automotive destination, with a showroom, bar, restaurant, coffee shop and around 40 to 50 businesses renting space. It was also where the car storage side of the operation began to take off.
When Duke of London moved out in 2024, McCormack had another big idea.
Welcome to the Brentford Riviera
The firm’s current home is a 50,000 sq ft space inside a newly built multi-storey car park constructed as part of Brentford’s regeneration.
When several of the parking spaces failed to sell, McCormack saw an opportunity to create something well outside of the box.
Duke of London swooped to take over eight floors of the site on what it calls the ‘Brentford Riviera’ and the result could not be more of a far cry from a conventional premium showroom.
The firm offers around 40 to 50 cars for sale at any one time, alongside approximately 140 to 150 vehicles in managed storage for clients.
The building also houses a bar, restaurant, coffee shop and spaces for private events, brand activations and car launches.
The venue is open to the public at weekends, with DJs playing on Friday and Saturday nights and throughout Sunday.
The firm has also proved a popular spot for TV and movie filming, with Gangs of London even shooting scenes at the site. On the day of our visit, the main showroom had largely been handed over for filming related to F1.
McCormack says the site has been designed as a one-stop shop for all things to do with car culture, while also appealing beyond the usual supercar crowd.
‘It’s [about] building a place that we would want to come and hang out in,’ he said. ‘And thankfully, it seems like other people do too.’
‘We didn’t want to make it a kind of man cave. We really want the cars to decorate the space, not be the definition of the space.
‘We don’t want to book them out every weekend so the public can’t come and enjoy it too,’ he said.
Selling cars the Duke of London way
For all the hospitality and events, it is clear from our chat that McCormack’s first love remains car sales.
The operation has grown from him working alone to a team of sales staff, with the firm largely operating using a sale or return (SOR model).
It is an approach which has come under the spotlight in recent years – particularly following the high-profile collapses of both GVE London and Targa Florio Cars – but McCormack insists that the benefits outweigh the risks.
Speaking about the sales operation, he told Car Dealer: ‘That’s one part of the business I don’t think I’ll ever let go of because I love doing it.’
He added: ‘We probably own at any one point 10 to 15% of the stock, the rest of it is all on sale or return.
‘We used to be 100% sale or return but now we are in a position where we can dabble in buying our own stuff.
‘There was frankly a long period of time where we didn’t want to own the stock because the market was so volatile or on a downward spiral and it wouldn’t have made much sense.
‘I had a lot of the friends in the trade who got really badly stung on more classic British sports cars and things like that.
‘It’s a model that works well for us and we’ve got a lot of repeat business.’
A changing market
The cars in the showroom have changed considerably since the firm’s early days, with McCormack seeing a generational shift in what buyers want.
For the previous five years, Duke of London’s average selling price has stood around the £70,000 mark. In the five months before our interview, that figure has risen to approximately £200,000.
McCormack believes buyers are increasingly drawn to performance cars from the late 1990s through to the mid-2010s, rather than the traditional classics favoured by previous generations.
‘People aren’t lusting after necessarily the latest models anymore,’ he said. ‘They’re realising that the peak car was probably late 90s through to mid-teens.
While the move towards more expensive stock offers the potential for stronger margins, McCormack is keen to retain the more affordable cars that helped build Duke of London’s reputation.
The firm will continue to stock interesting vehicles priced at £20,000 to £30,000, particularly those it likes enough to buy outright.
‘We’re here to do business and make money,’ he said, ‘but we also don’t want to ostracise our existing audience who know us for the more approachable stuff.’
Storage and plans for the future
Car storage has become another major part of the business, with customers ranging from local owners who need secure space for their pride and joy to international clients who want a vehicle waiting for them when they arrive in London.
Its location between central London and Heathrow makes it particularly convenient for overseas owners.
The collection is varied, stretching from a classic Fiat 500 and a Toyota Prius to Ferrari F40s and LaFerraris.
McCormack sees plenty of scope to expand the operation as demand grows.
‘For me, the most important thing is to expand the storage offering,’ he said. ‘Demand for it’s incredible at the moment around here. So as long as we’ve got the demand, we’ll keep taking more space on.’
Getting the current venue ready, however, was far from straightforward.
The building was originally intended for boat storage and lacked running water and sewer connections. It took two years after McCormack agreed to occupy the site for Thames Water to connect it to the sewers, delaying the fit-out.
The team also had to contend with lifts that did not work and 16 floors of stairs. Once the fit-out began in September, it took until May to complete, costing more and taking longer than expected.
McCormack said he would not undertake another project on the same scale, but he is already thinking about how the venue might evolve over the next few years.
‘We’ve always been known to keep the spaces we’ve been occupying looking fresh,’ he said. ‘So we never want it to stay aesthetically the same or the concept to be exactly the same for the duration.’
After spending the day at Duke of London, it was clear to see that the business has been moulded in the image of its founder. It seems that Merlin has managed to find something magic in a small corner of West London.