Ebay Bid Gives Lucky Don A Safety Net

Newcastle Herald

Thursday May 25, 2006

with Anita Beaumont and Michael Gadd

BELMONT North resident Don Pearson should have bought a lottery ticket the same day he bought his second '65 Peugeot 204 on internet shopping site eBay.

He purchased the car just weeks before touring with the 10,500-kilometre, month-long Peugeot Round Australia Rerun, but was storing it in Toowoomba while he worked out how to he was going to bring it to Newcastle.

As fate would have it, Pearson was just outside Toowoomba on the rerun when his windscreen broke. Parts for older Peugeots are hard to find, so having the recently purchased extra car meant he could replace his windscreen and continue with the other 59 participants.

Fellow Peugeot lover (he owns six) and Morisset resident Phillip Bromley, pictured, also had a lucky trip.

"I didn't even have to take a screwdriver out of the toolbox," Mr Bromley said.

"Driving back into Sydney at the end I thought 'beauty, the old girl's still got it'."

Pearson and Bromley were two of 12 groups who didn't race in the rerun, instead cruising in memory of the original Ampol Trial victory 50 years before.

Victorian competitors Brian and Merrillyn Ward took the honours for outright victory in a Peugeot 404.

© 2006 Newcastle Herald

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