Record breakers come in all sorts of varieties: from Olympic-level pie eaters to high wire dare-devils. But let’s not forget about the record breaking parallel parker.
We're delighted to say that the record for the tightest-ever parallel park is back on these shores, thanks to the steering prowess of one Alistair Moffat. The Scot had held the accolade once before, but in July 2013 it was swiped by Chinese motorist Han Yue.
However, Moffat re-took the prize last week at the Autosport International Show, held at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.
Han Yue had used a Mini to slide into a tiny parking space, with just 8.6cm to spare. However, Moffat bettered this by 1.1cm; his Fiat 500 had just 7.5cm of space around it – under 4cm on either side!
As many of our breakdown cover customers would agree, getting close to such tiny margins without inflicting some major paintwork damage on other cars is near-impossible for most of us.
Although Moffat did have an extra steering knob on his Fiat to make turning faster, and his tyres were extra pumped up, his vehicle was otherwise no different to a regular car.
If you fancy learning to park like Moffat, then you may need to do some serious work on your hand-eye co-ordination. For inspiration you can check out this incredible video of the driver carrying out his record-breaking parallel park in front of a delighted Birmingham audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfkPjo3KAEA
This was clearly no 12-point turn affair!
Parking has never been so entertaining, although it may be some time before the nation’s driving schools are teaching this particular manoeuvre.
Breakdown Cover from 
