- World’s Largest GPS Drawing is Halloween-themed and spread across UK
- Image took six weeks to ‘draw’ using first new-model Vauxhall Corsa
- Nearly 10,000 miles travelled on UK roads to achieve glittering result
- GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ confirms that the new record has been set
Luton – Did you ever realise that Loughborough hid the jagged tooth of a giant, fearsome pumpkin? Or that London’s Paddington is the start of a 1,420-mile long spider’s web, its strands dissecting the M25? And who’d have thought that Wales housed the mythical ‘H’ in the word Halloween, or that motorists on the A905 in Scotland had been driving over the ears of an evil bat for the last month?
Halloween fantasy? Not a bit of it, says car company, Vauxhall. Its new Corsa, which went on sale this month, has created a 6,080-mile-long image across the length and breadth of Britain’s mainland making the World’s Largest GPS Drawing, completed just in time for Halloween.
Adding credibility to the sinister, the country-wide art was officially validated earlier this week by GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ as the World’s Largest GPS Drawing, the previous record amounting to a ‘mere’ 4,500 miles.
‘There are Corsas in every village, town and city in Britain,’* said Simon Hucknall, Vauxhall’s PR Manager. ‘So we thought it fitting that the new model should visit as many of them as possible to celebrate its arrival. Halloween-day coincided with the end of our press launch, and our GPS artist drove like a bat out of hell to produce an apt image of epic proportions.’
The artist at the wheel of the Corsa was US-born Jeremy Wood, one of the pioneers of GPS art, which combines drawing, travelling and technology to create art-work on a large scale. Over 264,000 positions were recorded with the Corsa’s GPS receiver and linked together like a virtual dot-to-dot drawing, using Great Britain as a giant canvas.
Averaging over 50mpg in the Corsa 1.0-litre ECOTEC, Jeremy drove in just over a month what an average motorist would cover in a year. Including ‘go-betweens’ (the journeys used to link the images), the Corsa accrued 9,750 miles, averaged 221 miles each day, consumed 961 litres of petrol, achieved 45mpg and only had one incident, where a pigeon collided with its door mirror. Jeremy also drove the entire distance barefoot, arguably another driving record!
‘We wanted an image that embraced Britain’s mainland, but also chimed with the public at this time of year,’ said Hucknall. ‘GPS art was the answer, and new Corsa the paintbrush. The final image and YouTube film celebrate the fact that Vauxhall’s Corsa is part of our motoring landscape, and is loved by drivers throughout our country.’
After starting out from Vauxhall’s HQ at Grifffin House in Luton, Jeremy drew the first mile of the image in Caereinion, Wales. Nearly 10,000 miles and 44 days later, he completed the drawing in Wallingford, England.
The most northerly element is in Fraserburg, Scotland, and in the south, Plymouth, England. Covering the breadth of the country, the most westerly location was Ballantrae, Scotland, and to the east, Lowestoft on the Suffolk coast of England.
*Have Jeremy and the Corsa been to a village/town/city in your area? Please see the attached images, taken as he drove around the UK on his record-breaking drive.
