The owner of a car advertised it for sale as a 'Herald convertible, white, 1961, twin carbs'. The buyer answered the advertisement, went to the seller's home and, having seen the car there and having been driven in it by the seller, bought it. In fact, though neither the seller nor the buyer realised this at the time of the sale, the rear half of the car was part of a 1961 Herald convertible car, but the front half was part of an earlier model, the two halves having been welded together. The rear of the car bore the mark '1200', which was first applied to the 1961 model. No one could see, from looking at the car in the ordinary sort of examination which would be made, that the car was anything other than that which it purported to be. The buyer, on discovering the true position, kept the car and brought an action against the seller for damages for breach of condition implied by s.13 of the Sale of Goods Act, 1893, on a contract for the sale of goods by description; the seller contended that the sale was of a thing seen by the buyer and bought on the buyer's own assessment of its value. The buyer's claim was dismissed. The buyer appealed.
Held The buyer was entitled to damages because, although the description of the car was not false to the knowledge of either the seller or the buyer, yet fundamentally the seller was selling a car of the description advertised.
Appeal allowed.
Dictum of Lord Wright in Grant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd (1935) applied.