Imagine! A car that can park itself!

So you finally found a parking space, yet parallel parking has never really been your thing, what do you do? Leave the space for a more experienced driver and spend another half an hour or so looking for some where that you can just drive into, but is about a mile away from your destination? Or do you try and squeeze your car into that tiny place, worrying about what all the on lookers are thinking about your parking skills.

Well worry no more for help is at hand, Lexus have developed a handy optional extra called Intelligent Park Assist System, and yes it really does do what it says on the box. Basically you need to find a suitable parking place, you pull up and line up the system by selecting reverse gear, the camera comes on and the display screen offers you the options, after tapping the screen the car simply manoeuvres itself into the parking space, naturally you need to keep your feet in control of the car and brake at the right moment, but the system will steer the car into effortlessly into the vacant parking space for you, bear in mind you do need to be in complete control of the car at all times, people tend to walk between cars!

The system is available in the LS460, no doubt once this system has been proved to be a success then it will be rolling out on other models, how good it is will be down to how it is used and how often, but it is excellent idea for those who find this type of parking a problem.