Okay I'm sorry for recalling The Bay City Rollers at this (or any other) time of the day, but I promise you this is a rare occasion so I feel it may warrant it.

Last Friday my prized 1993 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 finally through in the towel with a broken (or near as needed) water pump. The engine temperature was through the roof, at one stage the big red CHECK ENGINE light was on, and by the end of the morning there was lots of water and steam in the engine bay. This was not a Cool Threads moment.

The local specialist Japanese import garage estimated 6 hours labour just to get to the water pump, as you can see, not much space is wasted in the engine bay. 6 hours labour + parts + labour + 6 hours labour == lots and lots more money. The car had just come from the garage the day before (for totally unrelated, but still expensive) servicing. It was time for an big decision.

I used a Japanese import garage for servicing ( www.tuningjapanese.co.uk -- sorry guys I won't be need your services anymore!). My Mitsubishi, however, hadn't come directly from Japan. I bought my headturner in 2000 form a friend in Dallas, Texas, when I was working for Sun in California. I brought the car home via Galviston, Texas and Southampton (England!) a year or so later, and I like to think it had been a head turner ever since (although my girlfriend absolutely hates it!).

So after 8 years could I really bare to be parted from COLSVR4?

The licence plate should be read as COL'S VR-4 and not COL SVR4 (which was never intended and was only pointed out by someone much more nerdy than I!).

Aside from the emotional attachment, we also had to deal with

• an MOT with only 12 left days to run (making it less attractive to potential buyers)
• a leaking/faulty waterpump (making it a lot less attractive to potential buyers)
• flaking, formerly chrome-plated, alloys thanks to 7 too many years of UK road salt!
• faded rear spoiler, thanks to 7 too many years of Texas sunshine!

So although it was difficult, I took the decision to call it a day, and list on eBay. Lots of people were as gobsmacked that I was selling up as that I was selling up on eBay, but I figured I'd reach far more potential buyers, could push to close the sale before the MOT expired and would hopefully avoid the time-waster agencies that seem to plague all classified sales in the UK.

This was the quickest listing I've every completed from deciding to list, taking photos, writing description and having the auction live (okay it was about 90 minutes from the last photo being taken to the auction being live, but this was also the most expensive item I've ever listed, so on a auction-writing/auction-value basis, I think we have a winner.

We also had a winner on the auction, just over 48 hours after listing we had a Buy-It-Now and within another 48 hours the car was gone!

Woh, that was quick! What can I say? It's a fast car!

A word about the buyer/winner (you win, now hand over the money!!). David and Greg came up from Southampton on Tuesday teatime, although like the car, they hadn't originally come from Southampton. You could tell this from their accents - clearly Polish (much better at speaking English than I am at Polish though).

David was the mechanic, Greg was the builder. Luckily Greg took a proverbial back seat and left David to fiddle with the coolant system, and after a 15 minutes of fiddling the way only people who know what they're doing can fiddle, Greg reckoned everything would be okay. They paid a deposit and we agreed they pay the balance and remove the car the following afternoon.

Not unusual, well maybe not but such a car sale in England would have by this stage typically seen the buyer sucking their teeth and offering 20% less than they'd already agreed, given the car's 'nick'.

These guys didn't even look at the tyres let alone start kicking them!

True to his word David the mechanic arrived on Wednesday afternoon, with another Polish mate, a builders lorry with 5 tonne hydraulic crane and a large wadd of cash. Once the money side of things was out the way, I explained a few little idiosyncrasies of the car and then the fun of getting the car onto the lorry started.

The car was pulled up along side the lorry and straps were threaded through the alloys(!). The lorry's stabilizers were lowered and then David started unpacking the crane. Everything was going well until a couple of pints of oil spewed out of one of the crane's elbows. He said a word that might have been Polish (but I understood the sentiment!). And then came one of those questions you know you'll probably never be asked again.

"Do you know we'd be able to borrow a fork lift truck from?"

Lucky for David we were about a mile from a busy industrial estate (an industrious industrial estate?) with builders merchants, couriers and a company that makes fork lift trucks.

Lucky for David's mate he had to drive the car (slowly) behind the lorry (I think he was trying not to act overly chuffed, given how cheesed off David was about his crane!).

So the last I saw of COLSVR4 was it driving down my road (which beats leaving on the back of a builder's lorry). I spoke to the Poles the following morning and they were already in Germany, enroute to Poland. Clearly someone was happy to turn a blind health-and-saftey-eye and help them load the car.

At least it's off on a new adventure, it beats selling it to 'some guy' in 'Somewhereton', 'Nowhereshire'!

For the time being I'm going to stick with just my just my daily drive (a 1998 VW Passat 1.9TDi - chalk meet cheese!). Next on my spare car shopping list is probably going to be something like this or this but not like this. Meantime I've heard there are some bargains to be had on the NASDAQ.