“We were happy to learn that one of Kelfords’ customers was the winner of the recent Ford Credit finance competition, in which one new Ford owner won a R100 000 down payment on his or her vehicle finance,” says Tristan Kelly, the Dealer Principal at Kelfords.

Tristan was even happier after a phone call to the randomly drawn winner – Warren Smith – revealed that the young father has been hit hard by the post-lockdown economic slump and that the money would help him and his family survive these tough times.

Warren bought a brand-new Ford EcoSport after he spent some time behind the wheel of his parents’ EcoSport and fell in love with the driving position, ride quality and low fuel consumption.

“My parents recently bought a similar vehicle from Kelfords, and we were so impressed with their car’s better mileage that we started thinking about it. When they told us about the brilliant customer service they received from the Kelfords sales team, so we went to have a look,” says Warren.

Warren financed his new EcoSport through Ford Credit, which was hosting a finance-repayment competition in partnership with, Ford Credit South Africa, a joint venture entity formed between Absa Bank Limited and Ford Credit International. The competition ran for close on a month, before the hard lockdown, and the subsequent halt to vehicle sales also stopped any retail promotion.

With the finance application approved, the Kelfords team delivered the new EcoSport to the Smith family shortly before the lockdown.

But the family’s excitement was short-lived after wife Jana heard that her position was to be made redundant. This left Warren as the only breadwinner and worrying over the family budget and vehicle repayments.

“And then, just when we thought we made a mistake, we heard that we’d won the competition, which nearly halved the amount we owed!” says Warren.

Ford Credit and Absa paid the R100 000 shortly after having randomly selecting him as the winner and learning about Jana’s unfortunate situation.

A ceremonial hand-over of the down payment was made on 10 October at Kelfords in Somerset West, with Warren, Jana and little Lyla in attendance. The hand-over was made by Tristan and also attended by Alf Martin, a regional representative Ford Credit.