Rare muscle car 'erupts' in flames at petrol station

An onlooker has described the moment a vintage American muscle car "erupted" into flames at a petrol station.

Alan Mutton, from Kennington in Oxfordshire, said he had been admiring the 1979 Pontiac Firebird at Tesco petrol station in Abingdon on Saturday.

Having headed back to his own vehicle to fill it up, Mutton said he saw "flames erupt from underneath" the vintage vehicle.

Mutton, alongside the vehicle's owner and fellow onlookers, tackled the blaze, extinguishing it before crews from Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue arrived.

"As I was filling up my car, this chap arrives in this big American heavy Trans Am, so we got out, had a look at it and took some photographs," Mutton explained.

"It's not something you see often and it was obviously this guy's pride and joy, so he was pleased to show us."

Pontiac began making the Firebird in the mid-1960s, and it achieved global notoriety in the 1970s when Burt Reynolds drove a black and gold one in the hit film Smokey and the Bandit.

The cars were never officially sold in the UK market - those seen on British roads are mostly all rare private imports.

Mutton said he and the 1979 Firebird's owner had finished filling up when "I looked across and the flames erupted".

"I could feel the blasts of the heat from the flames," he said.

"I drove my car away, up near the fire extinguishers, jumped out of the car, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and ran back and started to have a go at putting the flames out."

"We emptied every extinguisher that we had we could see and luckily, by the last one, the flames had thankfully gone out because they kept reigniting."

Mutton added that petrol station staff had been "really good", and helped to evacuate people from the forecourt during the blaze.

In a statement, Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said it received reports of the car fire at the petrol station, on Marcham Road, at about 08:30 BST on 30 May.

It said three crews from Abingdon, Didcot and Rewley Road fire stations were sent to the scene.

"On arrival crews found that the fire had already been extinguished," the service added.

The BBC has contacted Tesco for a comment.