SOME people buy shoes on eBay. Some dresses, some shirts.

Ian Stein bought a car. And not just any car - a 1968 Chevrolet Camaro classic car from a farmer in Missouri.

It cost him £7,000 and he got it by the skin of his teeth.

He said: “The deadline was coming up at midnight.

“The time was ticking away. At the last minute I tried to put my bid in but the message came up ‘Sorry you have lost’.

“However, the man who won it did not have the money so I got it.”

On the journey to its first show, the Camaro’s engine blew up and had to be rebuilt by an engineer from East Mersea.

Ian and his car have been through some times together including his wedding to Julie, who he describes as his rock.

And it will be at the Headway Essex Classic Car Show in Lower Castle Park in Colchester next month.

Headway means a lot to Ian. The charity supports brain injury survivors and their families and helped Ian after he suffered a life-changing and life-threatening bleed on his brain in December 2008.

Before then, Ian had undergone open heart surgery. The surgeons at St Barts Hospital in London gave him a prosthetic valve.

Some time after, he had a banging headache.

He said: “I was popping pills left, right and centre. I was at work and I felt so awful I had to go home.

“My exhaust went on my car on Clingoe Hill. I got home but I can’t remember much after that.”

Ian’s memory for the next two months is sketchy.

His account of what happened next has come from Julie and other friends and family.

He said: “I was taken to Colchester General Hospital but went rapidly downhill.

“Julie was told a bacterial infection had settled in the new prosthetic valve.

“The doctors were not sure how it could of happened but I think now it might have been from cleaning out my tropical fish.

“I ran a business, Classique Designer Print, and I have a feeling I may have nicked my finger and that might have been how the bacteria got in.

“The prognosis was not brilliant. I was put in a coma. It was not brilliant for my family.

“At one point the doctors thought I would only survive for half an hour, they were trying everything.

“But when I was in the intensive care unit, I reached up and went to pull my tube out of my mouth which showed them I was still there.”

Ian was transferred to Queen’s Hospital in Romford, a specialist unit for neurological conditions. Ian had had a bleed in the frontal lobe of his brain.

The injury was to leave its mark. When Ian was returned to Colchester General Hospital, he had to build his muscles up so he could walk again.

He said: “I was in a wheelchair. The physio told me to pull myself up on the parallel bars and walk to him.

“Days before I have been measured up for a wheelchair. That put the fear of God into me.

“When I walked, there were tears coming down my cheeks. The first thing I did was text Julie.”

Ian’s rehabilitation took time but seven months later, he married Julie.

He said: “It was a fantastic day, it meant everything to me.

“It was the happiest day of my life and it would not have been possible if I had not had the love and encouragement from all my family and close friends.”

Ian also had to undergo more open heart surgery and had the prosthetic valve replaced with a tissue valve - an operation carried out by the same surgeon who installed the prosthetic one.

Ian’s road to recovery has been a long one. He had to give up the running of his business, passing the reins over to Julie, but he was determined to work again.

Two years after he left hospital he got a part-time job at the Range in Colchester and then got himself a warehouse job.

He then secured a job in a printing firm - he knows the business inside out - and is now looking for work again after being made redundant.

Throughout it all, he has had invaluable support from his family and friends and from Headway.

Ian, 51, of Eastwood Drive, Highwoods, Colchester, who is a father and a grandad, said: “I really enjoyed the meetings at Headway and have made some good friends in the group.”

Ian, and more importantly his car, will line up at Headway’s classic car show on September 18.

“He said: It will be really nice to see people and their classic cars.

“It is nice to see what they have done to time.

“You appreciate the hard work which goes into it.”

For more information on the Essex Classic Car Show, go to headwayessex.org.uk