Pensioner’s Porsche sold to someone else

A PENSIONER has won £35,000 damages after a car dealership sold a rare Porsche, on which he had paid a £10,000 deposit, to another buyer.

Kevin Hughes, 67, set his heart on a limited edition Porsche 911 GT3 RS4 and sacrificed part of his pension to buy one.

He knew that the extremely rare 2011 model would be the last four-litre Porsche 911 ever made and that there would be “a race” among car enthusiasts to get one.

Mr Hughes paid his deposit to Porsche Centre, Bolton, in March 2011 to ensure he would be “first in the queue” if the dealership took delivery of one of the cars.

Fewer than 30 were sent to Britain and Mr Hughes was bitterly disappointed when a salesman told him that none of them had made it to Bolton.

“This was untrue,” Mr Jus- tice Cranston said at the Appeal Court, as the dealership had received one of the cars but had sold it to another customer.

The buyer who drove away in Mr Hughes’s “dream car” had paid his deposit later and should have been behind him in the queue, the judge said.

When Mr Hughes, who runs a classic car repair shop in Chorley, discovered the truth he took the dealership’s parent company, Pendragon Sabre Ltd, to court.

Three Appeal Court judges overturned a ruling made at Preston county court in 2013 and awarded Mr Hughes £35,000 damages.

The amount is the difference between what he would probably have paid for one of the cars, £135,000, and its collector’s value, £170,000.

Pendragon Sabre must pay £50,000 towards Mr Hughes’s legal costs at once, although the final bill is likely to be substantially higher.