Richard Yarrow's opinion for www.startrescue.co.uk, providing low cost Vehicle Recovery cover.

Whoever thought of this little PR stunt will have earned their money this week? Aftermarket cover provider Warranty Direct came up with a list of car components, worked out from its database of claims which vehicle has the least reliable example of each – the sort of issue that might leave you reaching for your car breakdown cover – and then stitched them all together to make one composite image (above). Wish I’d thought of doing that!

Bosses at Warranty Direct say this Frankenstein’s monster of a car would break down every other month and cost an average of £2,050 to fix each year. They’ve even christened it Monster MkI and say it would have:

Brakes from an Audi A8

Suspension from a BMW M3

Engine from an MG TF

Gearbox from a Land Rover Freelander

Ignition from a Mercedes-Benz V-Class

Electrics from a Renault Megane

Air-con from a SEAT Alhambra

Steering from a Volvo C70

The data used to create the list is from WD’s Reliability Index, based on 50,000 live policies on cars with an average age of five years. The Index measures car reliability by considering average cost of repair, frequency of failure, age and mileage.

There is a serious point, which is that what are on the face of it decent enough cars can be let down to the point of breakdown by a single duff component.

If WD gets good publicity for this – and I think it might – I can see it becoming an annual event. Watch out for Monster MkII next July.