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Midnight bidding - the beginning

Why anybody would want to end an eBay auction at almost midnight on a Saturday evening is anybodies guess.

I'd been watching eBay for a couple of weeks and getting the feel for what Porsche classics were selling for, and it just so happens that I'd been watching this auction for a 944. My eBay iPhone app had sent me a reminder a few minutes before the end of a film my wife and I were watching. I decided to view the auction alert and found that with a few minutes to go bidding was sitting at a less than a grand. Reviewing the listing I figured this may just be worth a punt.

I decided on a maximum bid and entered the amount into the bidding box but didn't push enter.

All of the advice that I'd read up on about eighties Porsches came flooding into my head - this car was in fact 23 years old. Lots could be wrong with it and expensive to put right if I was unlucky enough to buy a dud that I hadn't driven. Furthermore this 944 was 130 miles away in Somerset.

I had done this before though, winning a 306 cabriolet almost 2 years ago that had been my current project. I'd enjoyed and endured bringing that car back to former glory whilst still been able to use it as a daily driver. It had been a much more satisfying time than buying some heartless runabout to pimp. I was ready for a new challenge, but was it worth the risk?

I now had about forty seconds left on the auction, there was no movement on the price - so I did what most aspiring Porsche owners would have done at midnight, and pressed enter. I was officially bidding. With less than half a minute left on the auction, somebody, somewhere, was now frantically trying to out bid me. My pulse was racing!

If there had ever been a perfectly timed bid of mine, that was it. It wasn't a planned strategy but it sure did work. In the remaining seconds only two bids were registered. Then it was all over. I won the auction with heart pounding in my chest as bidding closed.

I was now the owner of a white 1986 Porsche 944 Lux. What boy growing up in the eighties didn't want one of those? The grin on my face was immense.

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