Lucky Coventry student wakes up to new BMW and £10,000 cash prize

An automotive engineering student from Coventry struck lucky when a £3 raffle ticket netted him £10,000 in cash and a brand-new BMW.

Hengqin Hu woke up last Tuesday to find he’d won the keys to a £53,000 BMW X5 as well as ten grand in cash through an online raffle at BOTB.com.

BOTB.com chief executive William Hindmarch travelled to Hengqin’s student house in the Stoke area to present him with his winnings.

The lucky student had just woken up when Hindmarch and a cameraman showed up on his doorstep and told him: “We have a little surprise for you this morning: it’s all yours, congratulations.”

He grabbed a cardigan and was taken to a car park to collect “the SUV he’s always wanted”, as well as a suitcase of cash and a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

‘It’s like a dream’: Hengqin and his winnings (Photo: Coventry Telegraph)

Hengqin, an automotive engineering student from Shanghai, told the Coventry Telegraph: “It’s like a dream. I never imagined I might win.”

The lucky student has never owned his own car before. The raffle on Best Of The Best he entered is a weekly raffle where entrants buy tickets for £3-£20 for the cars they want to win, then play a “Spot the Ball” game.

The entrants must use their “skill and judgement” to place a ball in a photograph – the person to place it best is selected by a judging panel and sent their dream car.

“We go all around the country surprising people,” said Hindmarch. “You never know who it’s going to be. They’re all different cars and it’s always making somebody have a very happy Tuesday morning.”

Coventry’s Computing and Engineering building where Hengqin studies (Photo: Coventry Telegraph)

Hengqin, who enters the Dream Car competition most weeks, had jumped at the chance to buy half-price tickets for the luxury SUV.

Funding his studies himself, Hengqin says he will use the cash to buy a digital piano. He said: “I’ll take my friends out tonight for a meal. I think with the rest I will use it for tuition fees.”

As for the car, he’s thinking about a road trip to Scotland.