Wheeler Dealers Heads Back to Home Soil
November 2, 2020
Wheeler Dealers, Discovery’s long-running hit TV show in which old cars are brought back to showroom condition, is leaving the sun of California and coming back to the UK. However, the show’s newest co-host, Ant Anstead, won’t be on the plane home with the rest of the team. Instead, there will be a new man on the spanners, namely Marc ‘Elvis’ Priestley.
Season 17, which is expected to air in 2021, will now be filmed near Bicester Heritage, which makes sense given all the brilliant artisan and specialist craftspeople on site. They should be able to make light work of anything the Wheeler Dealers boys can throw at them. Though what those cars will be remains to be seen. We would expect it will be the usual mix of modern classics and outright automotive icons, maybe those that are hard to find in the USA? We’d love to see a Lotus Cortina get the treatment, or maybe some ’50s British steel. Time will tell.
So what about Ant? Well, the news says that he’s staying behind in California to focus on new shows he has coming out next year. We don’t know what they are, but given how well he has been received by Motortrend, the automotive arm of Discovery, it’s safe to say it’ll be something that sees him on the spanners. Maybe more stuff like ‘Master Mechanic’ in which Ant hand built his own ’50s Formula One homage.
New presenter Marc ‘Elvis’ Priestley previously worked as a Formula One race mechanic for McLaren, and following his stint with the iconic racing organisation, has co-hosted a number of shows including Wheeler Dealers: Dream Car and Driving Wild. He is regularly seen on screen as a commentator and pundit for Sky Sports. Highly skilled on the tools, and with a great energy for the camera, we’re sure he’ll do a smashing job in this new, exciting role.
Mike Brewer has spent decades honing his technical skills, trading cars and customising vehicles to the highest standards. He has become a motoring household name and will continue to share his expert knowledge with viewers throughout the series. Which of course means he’ll throw lots of broken things at Marc and get him to fix them – it’s the way of the show! Though to give Mike credit, he has in recent series, been more hands on, getting involved with some of the nuts and bolts work on the cars, which is great to see and further builds the authority of the show.
Simon Downing, SVP, Head of Factual and Sport, Discovery UK said: “Bringing Wheeler Dealers back to the UK is an exciting moment for us. We’d like to thank Ant for doing a truly amazing job, he will always remain a member of the Wheeler Dealers family and will be making some special appearances in future episodes. A warm welcome to Marc ‘Elvis’ Priestley who has already proved a hit among fans in the spin-off Dream Car.”
The new series of Wheeler Dealers will air on Discovery Channel in Autumn 2021, so watch this space.
