BATTERED old cars are the last things that people want to see. So art student Sara Watson is making sure that they don't.

Sara, 22, from Ashton under Lyne, transformed an old Skoda Fabia into a canvas to match the parking space outside her studio at Central Lancashire University.

The car came from the breakers yard at Preston recycling firm Recycling Lives and Sarah, who is studying drawing and image making, worked every day to make sure every inch of it matched the background.

Now the company which donated the car is looking at using her trickery to advertise its recycling of unwanted cars.

Sara said: "I just started thinking about the idea of illusion and did a few sketches.

"Then I decided I needed something a bit more physical to make a bigger impact.

Challenge

"So I decided on a space outside my studio and used the car as a challenge. It took me a few weeks to do it, but it has caused quite a stir.

"People have been stopping in the street to look and coming up and almost bumping into it, so it's had the desired effect."

Sara, who is living in Preston during term time, said she was hoping for a career in advertising and would use her final year project to show potential employers.

Steve Jackson, founder of Recycling Lives, said he hoped the success would encourage more students to work with businesses.

He said: "What we want to do is keep talented young people here after they have finished their studies and, hopefully, if more businesses like us can work with students, that will happen.

"Sara has taken a slightly less brutal approach to making a car disappear - we break them up and recycle them, while Sara has used a more novel way of making them vanish.

"When I first saw the photos, I was convinced it had been done on the computer. But when you look more closely, you see the effort and attention to detail she has put into it.

"It's just amazing."