He claimed that he had owned the car for the necessary 12 month period and therefore should not have to pay the sales tax and duty that customs required. But as the car sat on the wharf it incurred demurrage (storage fees) and the price to clear the car was increasing all the time. I tried very hard to prove the 12 month period but to no avail. The car would then have been sold at auction to recover it's costs. I do not know who bought it or what kind of money it went for but the late Mike Booth who owned Continental Cars in Wellington at the time looked at it with me and estimated it would cost about $20,000 (1982 dollars) to bring it back to some reasonable condition. I do believe there were other issues involved in Mr Fow's decision not to pursue the situation but as these were only hearsay I won't go into them here.