A winemaker whose exorbitantly priced convertible was damaged when a parking valet at the Vancouver International Airport lost control of it has been awarded more than $20,000 by a B.C. Supreme Court judge.

Before leaving on a business trip in March 2007, Raymond Edward Signorello Jr. left his 2005 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG convertible with valet Wajahat Ahmad Khan.

The car cost Signorello, who lives in West Vancouver and owns a winery in California's Napa Valley, $210,000.

In court documents, Judge Christopher Grauer described the car as "young man's fantasy, and an older man's crisis." It was the fastest production car in the world when it was built, and can accelerate from zero to 100 kilometres per hour in 4.2 seconds.

But the Benz could be "a beast" to handle, in Signorello's words, if a computerized stability system called "ESP" wasn't engaged.

Khan lost control of the car while trying to pass a truck on his way to the parking lot used by his employer, Gateway Valet Service. He spun out, drifted into the oncoming lane and then left the road, crossing a concrete barrier.

The car came to rest on a row of three-foot-high trees.

Khan lost his job a few days later, but denied that he was racing the convertible. He testified in court that he could not remember if he had disengaged the so-called ESP system.

Grauer that he wasn't convinced Khan had pressed the ESP button, and pointed to the owner's manual, which warned: "The ESP cannot prevent the natural laws of physics from acting on the vehicle."

The Benz would require $26,000 worth of repairs -- all paid for by insurance -- to get it back up to factory condition.

In his decision, issued in October, Grauer wrote that Signorello was entitled to $16,000 in damages for accelerated depreciation of the car's value, $3,000 for two months' lost use and special damages worth $1,607.61 for repairs to special modifications of the car.

Khan, Gateway Valet, the Vancouver International Airport Authority and Imperial Parking Canada were all named as defendants in the suit.

Emotional distress claim dismissed

Signorello had also asked for damages for the anguish and emotional distress caused by the accident, arguing that "he was shocked, angry and upset for months thereafter [and] the accident distracted him from his business and his busy schedule."

But Grauer wrote that Signorello had not suffered any real psychological damage because of the accident, and dismissed the claim.

"In my view, pure property damage to a motor vehicle, involving no bodily injury of any kind, is, perhaps unfortunately, an ordinary annoyance in modern society," Grauer said.