The Bolton News
Bolton’s Porsche dealership
A PORSCHE-loving pensioner who was duped out of his £170,000 dream car by a lying motor dealership has triumphed in a landmark fight for damages.
Avid Porsche enthusiast, Kevin Hughes, 67, set his heart on owning a limited edition Porsche 911 GT3 RS4 and sacrificed part of his pension to get 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” amongst petrolheads to get hold of one.
Mr Hughes paid a £10,000 deposit to Porsche Centre Bolton in March 2011 to ensure he would be “fist in the queue” if the dealership took delivery of one of the cars.
Fewer than 30 of them were sent to the UK and Mr Hughes was bitterly disappointed when a salesman told him that none of them had made it to Bolton.
“This was untrue”, a top judge said today, as the dealership had received one of the cars but had sold it to another customer behind Mr Hughes’s back.
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.
And today, three of the country’s most senior judges ruled the company must pay for its behaviour and awarded Mr Hughes £35,000 damages.
Pendragon must also cover the huge legal costs of the case and its final bill will run well into six figures.
Mr Justice Cranston said 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.
Mr Hughes had been led to believe that it would be a case of “first come first served” after rushing to the car showroom to make the £10,000 down payment.
He was told he was “in a great position” to get one of the cars and was justly furious when he was pipped to the post.
The salesman told him in an email: “I can confirm that you will get the first one from Porsche Centre Bolton if we get one, which I am very confident that we will”.
Mr Hughes waited patiently for weeks after paying his deposit before the salesman emailed him with the bad news that Porsche had not allocated any of the cars to Bolton.
The judge said: “(The salesman) and Pendragon subsequently accepted that this was untrue.
“Pendragon had been allocated a 911 GT3 RS4 model, but it had been supplied to another customer”.
The judge, sitting with Lord Justice Richards and Lady Justice Macur, said it was “as plain as a pikestaff” that there was a binding contract between Mr Hughes and the dealership.
It was not just “an agreement to agree” and, by paying the deposit, Mr Hughes had done far more than merely “express an interest”, he added.
Having won the race to pay his deposit, Mr Hughes was assured that he would be first in line and the dealership was in breach of contract, he ruled.
Mr Hughes was awarded £35,000 damages – the difference between what he would probably have paid for one of the cars, £135,000, and its value to a collector, £170,000.
Pendragon Sabre was ordered to pay £50,000 towards Mr Hughes’ legal costs straight away, although the final bill is likely to be substantially higher.
The company will also have to pay its own legal team.
