Car artist to deface the UK

Here's another hare-brained PR stunt... sorry, we mean, dignified way of getting into the Guinness World Records, a bit like sitting in a bath of baked beans for ten years or something. Vauxhall, sister company of Opel, is going to draw a massive piece of GPS art on Britain. And we sincerely hope it can restrain itself and not draw anything rude in the process.

Also, when we say massive, we mean massive. The travelling necessary to render the image will cover more than 11,000 kilometres of the UK mainland; the current record for Largest GPS Drawing in the world is 4,451 miles (7,163km).

It's being done using the new Corsa and even involves motoring journalists putting the finishing touches to the drawing (which will stretch from Scotland to the south coast of England) while road-testing the model at various venues. Vauxhall said it wanted to do this because Corsas can be found in 'every village, town and city around the UK'. Yes, it's obvious, really...

However, the vast majority of the GPS image is being generated by one of the pioneers of this 'art', Jeremy Wood. If you're wondering how this works, it's basically like a time-lapse trace of a GPS transponder's path as it travels - so as the equipped car travels round, it leaves a 'virtual path' that can be later downloaded onto a map to create the art. Jeremy said: "This is by far the most challenging commission that I've taken on."

This record-breaking mega-pic will be revealed through multiple media channels, including social forums, at the end of October, with Vauxhall cryptically saying it will have 'particular relevance' to the day on which it goes live. And as the only significant date we can think of in late October is Hallowe'en, we reckon it's going to be a gigantic ghost. Well, come on - the UK is too tall and narrow for it to be a 11,000km carved pumpkin...