Chop Shop London Garage's Cars - Scrapped or Survived? Golf Porsche Rover

Chop Shop London Garage was the follow up series to Bangla Bangers, and featured Bangladeshi car designer coming to London to build cars with Bernie Fineman.

Whilst Leepu's cars often initiate active debate amongst car enthusiasts, our mission is to see if we can find out if they were scrapped or survived?

This time we are looking for the Jools Holland Rover Jet1 Concept replica, David Ginola's Beauty and Beast car for his son, based on a Porsche 944, and Johnny Vegas' Volcano car based on a Mk2 Volkswagen Golf

[Kingdonnerkebab]

Leepu should not be allowed near cars, countless cars ruined by his ‘designs’😂😂😂

[desobrien]

Well done, I remember this show & I was completely amazed at "how bad" these cars were...500 kg of bog on average per car & I recall wheel spacers that just could not be legal, engineered or safe. If I recall the massively wide aluminium machined wheel spacers were used on an XJ12! (P.S. Wheel spacers I believe are illegal here in Australia)

[dsesuk]

Further to the tweet shown, I recall (hopefully correctly) Johnny Vegas expanded on it to say he wasn't paid for being on the show, but the incentive was to be presented with a customised car at the end of filming. I believe he stated it broke down when he drove it away and the production team didn't want to know. He also said something along the lines of 'the best acting he ever did was to pretend to be pleased when he saw the friggin' thing!'

[Tommy_Poole]

I’m pleased to see that the Jet 1 replica is still alive and well. Can’t say I’m surprised that some of the other cars, built on this show, eventually found their way to the scrapyard. Sketchy piles of junk, most of them.

[nathanpinder]

As a friend of Bernie's, I can confirm he knew the Kray's well, he's been in a few documentaries regarding them.

I can also help out on info from other chop shop vehicles, I've got articles on them myself I published a few years ago.

[tichwykes]

I remember watching this program & by god there were some pieces of crap made, I think most cars had more filler in em than steel god awful things. I think the Rover was probably one of their better jobs & good to see it still going.

[kathrynwhitby]

having seen both programmes, i'd say that since Leepu's experience was mostly building bangers in (anything goes) India, he wasn't really qualified/skilled enough to factor in UK/EU safety regs in some of his builds. Bernie was right to have a go at him over some of Leepu's ideas & fabrication work.
Heck, i recall Martin Kemp's "special" was also close to being a death-trap before the "big reveal". (You could see it in Martin's face in the partially completed phase).

[nigelcharlton-wright]

Seem to remember the fun and games that the bodyshop had when they were building Jet1. Mr Holland told them that it should have been a Rover P4 75 from about 1950, rather than the later updated P4 with the bigger boot. The folk were not very complimentary about any of the Rovers used, I think they might of ruined maybe 3. The English geezer was always in a bad mood, shouting at Leepu. Didn't he later appear on another show, where you could hear him shout "Mario!" I almost wept at the sight of wasted P4s left for scrap when you consider they were considered quality cars at the time.

[BugsandaBack]

The Saab 'gangster car' they did for Martin Kemp was purchased by the organiser of VW Action, annual VW show held at Santa Pod.
Show goers were invited to write messages on it, or hit it with various implements for a donation to Brad's (a teenage cancer charity).
And then the car met its end by being crushed by Podzilla, Santa Pod's monster truck.

Having inspected the car close up, I can tell you that quality of workmanship was atrocious. And there was no way that should have ever been on the road. At least it was used to raise money for a good cause before it was put out of its misery.

[scotttait]

The johnny vegas car would've been epic if lepu had stuck to the remot of Mk2 golf body with subaru running gear ...instead he fkd it about and ceeated another eyesore

[mrcottrell]

The show was a laugh to watch but the cars were a joke, pug ugly and not built for safety it seems,

[danielforber]

Used love that show and loved the lotus carlton follow up great work

[toddlerdurden]

The Jet car looked ok.

Everything else, from what i remember, was shocking 😂.

Having said that i did enjoy watching the ahow.

[gazmini]

I felt sorry for johnny vagas on his car because you could see by his reaction that he absolutley hated it who could blame him it was absolutley horrific

[dusankocisevic]

Bernie and Leepu, what a pair of comedians. It was hilarious to observe what are they ‘cooking’ in every episode🤣🤣🤣

[danieleaton]

I remember watching this and some of those cars were awful even some of leepus Bangla bangers cars didn't sell and just sat rotting away

[bobfrankish]

Great video again. I'd forgotten all about that terrible programme, maybe I'd just blanked it out. Bernie always in a make-believe bad mood, Leepu building cars similar to that advert where they used an elephant to re-model a Peugeot or something like. I remember one episode when the garage had supposedly burnt down and Leepu was pretending to cry, absolute crap. I bet whoever supplied them with body filler took a kicking when that show finished, they would have bought it by the ton!

[billy]

As a child in the 50s, we lived a mile away from the Rover works. I saw the original jet car on a few occasions travelling along Hobs Moat Road. It once stopped briefly outside our house. The noise was amazing, with a heat haze hovering above the engine.

[benjy]

the best/worst part about this is, last time i sleuthing around Leepu still doing this as a business..i really want to understand people that willing to pay money for the work..

[stephenboitoult]

If that Jet 1 replica has a Jag motor it may well be able to maintain it's identity, but it positively does not qualify for immunity to MOT. I build resto-mods myself and I can state this with absolute certainty.