The car wash with more blow than dry

Mr Ash, 38, a driver with Lady Pamela's cabs of Chippenham, was sitting in his car inside the carwash at the Total garage on Rowden Hill, Chippenham, on Wednesday lunchtime, when the accident happened.

He said: "The drier was moving across the bonnet when suddenly there was a huge bang and it came crashing down on top of me.

"I almost jumped out of my skin. The drier was hanging down to one side, dangling by one small plastic cable and I could see it had left a huge dent in the bonnet.

"Straight away I put the car into reverse and shot out backwards I thought the whole thing was coming down on top of me."

The shaken driver reported what had happened in the garage shop and called the joint owner of Lady Pamela's, Terry Pike, to the garage.

Mr Pike said: "It must have been pretty frightening for Gwynn.

"The drier's a pretty heavy piece of equipment. If it had been over his windscreen when it dropped it could have caused him serious damage."

Mr Pike, 60, revealed that the £30,000 cab had only been delivered to the firm two weeks ago.

"It was on order for two months and just by looking at it, I can see that the damage to the bonnet, the wing and the bumper is going to cost at least a couple of thousand pounds to put right," he added.

"Gwynn is very proud of the car and keeps it spotlessly clean.

"Ironically he hadn't been able to use the Total car wash for the last couple of days because the drier cable had been broken, putting it out of action.

"The garage attendant told us that the cable had only been fixed this morning, but whoever repaired it didn't do a very good job did they?"

The forecourt assistant at the garage confirmed that the drier cable had been repaired on Wednesday morning.

He gave Mr Pike an incident form and said that Total would be in contact with Lady Pamela's in the next few days.

Mr Pike said: "This could mean that we have to take the cab off the road until it is fixed and hire another one in."