A Tauranga woman is the winner of a 2013 Toyota Hilux – thanks to buying a can of paint at Mitre 10 Mega.

Pauline Happe won the national ‘Dream Big to Win' competition, run by Mitre 10 in conjunction with Toyota.

Pauline Happe, middle, is the winner of the 2013 Toyota Hilux.

She entered the competition after spending just $11.50 on spray paint for her daughter's school art project, despite thinking there would be no way she would ever win.

'I enter most of the competition forms I get, and fantasise about what would happen if I won, but you never think it actually will.

'So to have really won is amazing but very unreal,” says Pauline.

'Mitre 10 rang me to tell me I'd won and I still can't quite believe it's true. All I could say when I got the call was: ‘you are not serious?'. I thought someone was trying to prank me and then when they assured me it wasn't a joke I thought I was going to cry, my mind went blank.”

The competition ran nationwide throughout the Mitre 10 MEGA network from August 1 to September 8. Mitre 10 MEGA Tauranga store manager Wayne Mansell is also delighted with the win, which adds to a recent lucky streak for the store.

'It's brilliant to have one of our local customers win the big prize, especially when there were so many entries. It just goes to show that everyone's got a chance and you really do just have to be in to win.

'It seems we're a lucky store. Just last month another customer walked away with 10,000 bonus Fly Buys points in the annual nationwide Sweet Deals competition.”

Wayne says his store produced two winners out of 10 in the My 10 Cents Worth customer survey draw, and he had a customer win one of the three top prizes in the Summer of Paint competition last year. To top it off the store was named Mitre 10 MEGA ‘store of the year' in August.

'It's been very exciting. Fingers crossed our lucky run will continue. It's fantastic when our customers walk away with a lot more than they expected.”