Warrenty Direct builds the worst car out of the worst cars for reliability, and what a monster it is.

• Warranty Direct creates a monstrous motor ready for Halloween
• The price to fix catastrophic components averages almost £500

As the dark nights draw in and Halloween approaches, Warranty Direct has used insights from its unique Reliability Index (www.reliabilityindex.com) to conjure up a horrific ‘horror’ car that would give its owners nightmares all year round.

The vehicle, known as the Horrific H-0WL3R, is constructed from car components which statistically are the most prone to failure. As a result it breaks down every other month and regularly feasts on the contents of its owner’s bank account, costing an average of £487 to repair.

Warranty Direct analysed data from 50,000 live policies to create this Frankenstein’s monster of the automotive world, using failure rates to determine which parts should be bolted on to the ultimate horror vehicle.  

The catastrophic components of the ‘Horrific H-0WL3R’

Make	Year	Car part
Mitsubishi Outlander	07-	Engine
Mazda 5	05-	Axle & suspension
Chevrolet Tacuma	05-11	Gearbox
Lexus GS	05-	Electrics
Mazda MX-5	05-	Braking system
Honda CR-V	07-	Air-Conditioning
Chevrolet Tacuma	05-11	Steering System

Sitting on the Mazda 5’s axle and suspension system, the Horrific H-0WL3R would most likely spend much of its time coming to grief over Britain’s poor quality road surfaces, breaking in the process, as the suspension inflicts problems on almost three quarters of Mazda 5s.

Power comes from a motor torn from under the bonnet of a Mitsubishi Outlander. This engine will be to blame for almost half of the many failed starts that the Horrific H-0WL3R will experience, with some 48.3% blighted by such issues.  

Once started, stopping the Horrific H-0WL3R could also make your heart skip a beat. Surprisingly, the Mazda MX-5 donates its braking system to the H-0WL3R. Although the car experiences most problems as infrequently as Halloween itself, in almost 50% of these instances, the issue is related to the brakes.  

Adding to this engineering monstrosity is the Chevrolet Tacuma. For drivers of the Horrific H-0WL3R, turning corners and swapping cogs will most likely be an unpleasant experience thanks to a steering system and gearbox which have both been proven to plague 33% of Tacumas with reliability woes.

Passengers too will feel the car’s wrath but via its temperamental electrics and ventilation system. The complex electrics of a Lexus GS will cause regular headaches with a 67% failure rate, while the wheezing air conditioning system of a Honda CR-V is likely to bring unpredictable temperatures and a lamentable failure rate of 18.4%.

David Gerrans, Managing Director of Warranty Direct commented, “This Halloween vehicle is the culmination of motorists’ nightmares, guaranteeing inconvenient and expensive breakdowns if it was ever to be built.

“Thankfully it is fictional and can’t be found on the market, nonetheless, it does highlight the Achilles heel of different vehicles, some of which are generally reliable, but could cause a fright as a result of a rogue component.”

Vauxhall Corsa GPS Art World Record

• World’s Largest GPS Drawing is Halloween-themed and spread across UK
• Image took six weeks to ‘draw’ using first new-model Vauxhall Corsa
• Nearly 10,000 miles travelled on UK roads to achieve glittering result
• GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ confirms that the new record has been set

Did you ever realise that Loughborough hid the jagged tooth of a giant, fearsome pumpkin? Or that London’s Paddington is the start of a 1,420-mile long spider’s web, its strands dissecting the M25? And who’d have thought that Wales housed the mythical ‘H’ in the word Halloween, or that motorists on the A905 in Scotland had been driving over the ears of an evil bat for the last month?

Halloween fantasy? Not a bit of it, says car company, Vauxhall. Its new Corsa, which went on sale this month, has created a 6,080-mile-long image across the length and breadth of Britain’s mainland making the World’s Largest GPS Drawing, completed just in time for Halloween.

Adding credibility to the sinister, the country-wide art was officially validated earlier this week by GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ as the World’s Largest GPS Drawing, the previous record amounting to a ‘mere’ 4,500 miles.

‘There are Corsas in every village, town and city in Britain,’* said Simon Hucknall, Vauxhall’s PR Manager. ‘So we thought it fitting that the new model should visit as many of them as possible to celebrate its arrival. Halloween-day coincided with the end of our press launch, and our GPS artist drove like a bat out of hell to produce an apt image of epic proportions.’

The artist at the wheel of the Corsa was US-born Jeremy Wood, one of the pioneers of GPS art, which combines drawing, travelling and technology to create art-work on a large scale. Over 264,000 positions were recorded with the Corsa’s GPS receiver and linked together like a virtual dot-to-dot drawing, using Great Britain as a giant canvas.

Averaging over 50mpg in the Corsa 1.0-litre ECOTEC, Jeremy drove in just over a month what an average motorist would cover in a year. Including ‘go-betweens’ (the journeys used to link the images), the Corsa accrued 9,750 miles, averaged 221 miles each day, consumed 961 litres of petrol, achieved 45mpg and only had one incident, where a pigeon collided with its door mirror. Jeremy also drove the entire distance barefoot, arguably another driving record!

‘We wanted an image that embraced Britain’s mainland, but also chimed with the public at this time of year,’ said Hucknall. ‘GPS art was the answer, and new Corsa the paintbrush. The final image and YouTube film celebrate the fact that Vauxhall’s Corsa is part of our motoring landscape, and is loved by drivers throughout our country.’

After starting out from Vauxhall’s HQ at Grifffin House in Luton, Jeremy drew the first mile of the image in Caereinion, Wales. Nearly 10,000 miles and 44 days later, he completed the drawing in Wallingford, England.

The most northerly element is in Fraserburg, Scotland, and in the south, Plymouth, England. Covering the breadth of the country, the most westerly location was Ballantrae, Scotland, and to the east, Lowestoft on the Suffolk coast of England.

*Have Jeremy and the Corsa been to a village/town/city in your area? Please see the attached images, taken as he drove around the UK on his record-breaking drive.

Ghost-hunting Yaris heads for Britain’s most-haunted village

Pluckley in Kent is no place for the faint-hearted after dark on Halloween, but the prospect of exploring Britain’s most-haunted village didn’t deter Toyota’s intrepid ghost-hunters who have been on the trail of wraiths and spirits in a blood red Yaris Sport.

The crew plunged into the misty lanes and by-ways, lights ablaze, in search of some of the tiny village’s many hauntings: the population of around 1,500 living souls is swollen by a legion of more than a dozen restless un-dead.

The spirited hatchback proved up to the task of following in the spectral footsteps of such legendary figures as the Screaming Man, the Highwayman, the Burning Gypsy and the tragic Red Lady, who still wanders from the church tomb where she was buried with a single red rose.

Gallant as Van Helsing facing down Count Dracula, the Yaris and our latter-day ghost-busters found the village rich in other-worldly atmosphere beneath a full moon. Prepared to meet the unexpected, they were nonetheless relieved their Toyota would be able to outpace any headless horseman should a quick get-away be required.

The full story of their adventure has just been published on the official Toyota UK blog, a tale best read by candle-light, with the curtains drawn and door firmly bolted.