Anyone who know Dean Johnson (AKA as DJ) will know that he has a heart of gold, and sadly life hasn't’t been as kind to him as it should have, so when Dean contacted us and asked us to help achieve his dream…well the only answer could be yes.

Now as import consultants this appeared at first glance to be just a simple job of liaise with the seller and shipping company, clear customs, ship the goods and clear UK custom…if only all jobs could have been that easy.

Murmurs started from Dean about some bloke who originally agreed to sell Dean his dream car and then withdrew his vehicle from sale…We should have known that was a sign, the car by the way was supposed to be an immaculate fully restored 1958 2 door Plymouth Fury, that had been rebuilt as a replica to the “Infamous Christine”.

During our conversations with Dean it was evident that something may well be on the Horizon and small references that were blurted out in his broad Yorkshire Accent were indicative of a rather nice car coming up for Sale in Canada….Canada FCS!!!!, what the hell is a car like that doing among the froggy lumber jacks of Ottawa University.

Anyway typically we are getting more drawn in, the emails and pasted url’s are becoming more frequent, the innuendo’s from Dean that his dream was on the horizon were increasing.

Anyone that knows Dean will feel the same as us, life had dealt him and his lovely wife a cruel turn and sadly they lost their beloved Son Si. My promise to Dean had therefore been that whatever it took time wise, that we would import his dream at no financial gain to us; everything would be done at cost.

Dean contacted me to say that he had sorted the deal and that he had settled the price with the seller and could we now start the shipping arrangements.

So after contacting the seller a person by the name of Joel Bourdeau there are some obvious differences between what Dean had agreed and what Joel thought he was getting….

Firstly Joel wanted the agreed fee as USD dollars and not Canadian a difference of £3705.53! Dean agreed to that, next was that it had to be in cash!!!

Now we are talking about a considerably amount of money, certainly in excess of the Canadian import regulations, so how does one get that sort of money over to Joel without getting the whole lot confiscated when going through customs.

Various phone calls later to my US shippers in the US and Canada and a suggestion is made to pay with American Express travellers Cheques.

Joel agrees, however Art, my shipping agents, warns of the potential fraud that may take place and suggests that a credit check should be organised of Joel, and the equivalent of an HPI done on the car, both checks come back favourably, these are then scanned and emailed to Dean for his own findings.

More papers, more faxes, more emails and more telephone conversations and things appear to have been agreed.

Joel will deliver the car personally from Ottawa and will deliver it to our shippers in Ontario. The shipper by the way does not want to be out done and indicates that he would like a slice of the action, so a rather large cheque in the shape of a monkey wings it way to him as well.

So before a deposit is sent we draw up a contract for Joel to sign and fax back to us, we then arrange a $1000 deposit by PayPal and an additional $275.00 to cover the costs of Joel delivering the car to Montreal.

We agree with Joel to organise the American Express travellers cheques, which gives Dean a chance to finalise the monies.

Monday morning comes and we discover that the largest Amex Traveller cheque that you can raise is $100 unless you place a special order for $500 ones, so we place an order for the cheques and anticipate a wait of up to two weeks.

Finally we are contacted by Amex in Birmingham which is the nearest place to ourselves to obtain the cheques.

Dean then calls us on a Sunday morning to say he is on his way down from Yorkshire, we email him a Map and after two hours get a call to tell us that he is hopelessly lost and can we help? How one can get in such a mess following the A5 no one will ever know, but finally we had to go and find him parked up in a pub car park some 10 miles away.

Finally we get him back and Barbara decides to empty a black dustbin liner of a very substantial amount of money, We have never seen such an amount of money before, shock and horror comes to mind as where are we going to hide this amount of cash before the banks open in the morning, Dean then proceeds to tell us of an even larger amount that they had taken down the pub with them before!!!!

Anyway, we plan a way to get the money deposited safely and the Chaps payment is then made to Amex for the cheques.

Thursday comes and the worst place we can imagine going is to the centre of Brum in heavy drizzle, then try and find a car parking place and find the Amex centre. Finally we find it and announce ourselves at the counter like drowned rats, after the security check, a very large wad of American Express traveller Cheques is presented to me to sign….FCS my right wrist was aching after completing it some twenty minutes later. When we return back to the Office one of us fills out the payee and I end up counter signing them for security purposes, nearly half an hour later and they are all ready.

We had booked the following day for Federal Express to call and collect the cheques for shipping to Montreal, however they got their wires crossed and after exhausting all means, we end up driving to Telford (20 miles away) to deliver the cheques so that they will arrive for the Monday.

Federal Express rings us on the way back to the office to apologise for the cock up and to confirm that they will credit the original fee, rather nice of them!

Monday morning comes and we fax to Art at the shippers and Joel the completion details in time for Joel to deliver the car the shippers on the Thursday.

Thursday comes and we ring Canada and speak to Joel whilst he is at the Shippers and confirm that everything is correct and present; Art confirms that the car is beautiful and the exchange takes place.

The car is then transported from Montreal by Train to Halifax and will ship to Liverpool in its own 40 foot container. I Forgot to mention that because there is not a minimum of 18 inches at either end of a twenty foot container with the car in, it meant that it had to travel on it’s own in a 40 foot one, this increases the destination handling charges, but ensures no damage.

Arrangements have now been made for car to be collected from the docks under a covered transporter and with Luck Dean will have his dream.

There are probably stacks that we have missed, and will kick myself for forgetting, however I cannot think of a nicer couple to do such a thing for.

You can watch the Trailer of the Film Chrisitine by Clicking the Logo Below: -

For those who might be interested, some entertaining stats follow: -

Who says shippers have it easy!!!!

Here's to two very special people, who's zest for life and kindness to others will never be forgotten, it has been a privilege to help them achieve their dream:-

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