Discovery Channel's motor heads

Rebecca Feiner meets the unlikely stars of Discovery Channel's Chop Shop series, who magically transform wrecks into bizarre masterpieces

I am on my way to meet an unlikely automotive TV double act, Bangladeshi Muslim car designer Leepu Awila and MTech engineer Bernie Fineman, who happily describes himself as East End Jewish boy made good. Both are stars of Discovery Channel's Chop Shop series, where Bernie's mechanical savvy and Leepu's unconventional handcrafted transformations turn unpromising, long-retired heaps of metal into convincing supercars.

Suped-up: a modified MG

It's as far from the BBC's big-budget flagship series Top Gear as you're likely to get. I pick my way through the back alleys and grimy railway arches of London's Bethnal Green, where oily taxi repair garages and a greasy spoon cafe produce a bizarrely appealing olfactory experience of onions, engine oil and rusting metal. Jeremy Clarkson-style celebrity presenters need not apply in this place, knowingly mocked in one episode of Chop Shop as S***hole Street.

I first came across one of Leepu's creations, rather poetically called the Angel Car, in May. He'd improbably fused a knackered 17-year-old London taxi worth £350 into a lipstick pink explosion of shiny surfaces inspired by the rickshaws of Bangladesh.

Leepu's transformative expertise with sheet metal hammers in the back streets of Dhaka were spotted by a television company after an article appeared in car culture magazine Intersection in 2005. Meanwhile, Bernie, 63 years young with 48 years experience under his belt, had previously appeared on both the small screen and radio, and was already a well-known character in the motoring trade.

Unusually for a car designer, Leepu was invited to be Artist in Residence at London's Rich Mix centre, so I really didn't know what to expect - a CAD-wielding creative of the Royal Academy Vehicle Design school or a diesel-in-the-blood motor mechanic.

Leepu turns out, like Bernie, to be in a class of his own. He's a compact, stocky fellow, full of unpretentious enthusiasm for car design. In no time, I am convinced it would be better to call him a car creator or sculptor; designer is too bland a description, in the same way that mechanical engineer is too dull a title for the ebullient, entrepreneurial Bernie.

As double acts go, they seem worlds apart beyond their mutual love for all things automotive. Leepu's sweep of black hair and 1970s sideburns (with a hint of late Elvis) contrast with Bernie, who sports a full head of flesh of the East End geezer variety and has the colourful patter to match.

Leepu uses his hands and traditional coachbuilding techniques to mould sheet metal into the curvaceous shapes and lines of his imagination. Never doing a single drawing, he literally feels his designs into being, keeping the image in his minds' eye. After gracing the Goodwood Festival of Speed this summer with a lethal-looking Jaguar XJS, which was duly snapped up, he is developing his next creation, to which he gives working title of "Green Mambo". The "eco car" is a recycled Mitsubishi Pajero 4x4 that runs on waste cooking oil from the curry houses of Brick Lane - perfect for environmentalists.

	Leepu and Bernie at work

Leepu seems genuinely emotional about his creations and the life-changing opportunity of relocating his family to London that the television series made possible. He seems oblivious that the headquarters for his bespoke artistic creations and niche-market customers are less champagne-and-canapés showroom and more good-humoured gangster flick with a touch of film noir.

To build a car on a limited budget and tight schedule takes real teamwork, so I ask if the on-screen fireworks of clashing personalities, egos and working methods are for real. "We are like brothers," Leepu smiles. Then, remembering his TV persona, he adds, "We hate each other and we love each other." Bernie is a talker, a mechanic with attitude, long on charm and a sense of humour that's purple-tinged and self- deprecating in equal measure. He explains how seeing Leepu's methods in Dhaka took him back 40 years to being a young apprentice at Rolls-Royce, albeit with old spanners, no ramps, a 35-year old jack that could only raise cars four inches off the ground and minimal health and safety. He respected Leepu's ability to improvise, utilising very limited resources to produce his creations. From entirely different cultures, but two sides of the same coin in their shared passion for cars, they found a petrolhead bond that has changed both their lives. In 2006, when Bernie's peers were thinking of retirement, a new TV career was born, building the finely tuned and powerful engines he loves for Leepu's designs.

"I've been in the motor trade all my life," says Bernie, playfully slapping his bald head. "I mean, I'm never gonna be a bloody hairdresser, am I?"