A FOX cub surprised a driver when it decided to take a nap in the engine bay of his car.

It was spotted climbing up through the wheel arch of a brand new Audi SQ5 and Scottish SPCA welfare officers spotted the unique stowaway snuggled up with the gearbox after being alerted by the driver.

Attempts to coax him out of the parked car, which was in a street in Aberdeen, with cat food failed as the frightened animal refused to budge.

It eventually took the skills of an AA patrolman to jack the car up and find a way to carry out the rescue mission without harm to the cub or the engine.

The fox was too young to be released into the wild and is now being hand-reared by SSPCA staff at the National Wildlife Centre in Clackmannanshire and staff expect him to be ready for release by the end of the summer.

Jason Robertson, from Maud, Aberdeenshire, who has been a Volkswagen Group technical specialist for the AA since 2006, said he was relieved to find the animal in one piece when he arrived.

He said: “When I saw the job come up with ‘Fox in engine bay’ I feared the worst. I thought maybe it had been hit and I would be arriving at a gruesome scene, but I was surprised to find that wasn’t the case.”

“We tried to coax it out with cat food. When that didn’t work, I jacked the car up and saw one of the cub’s legs dangling down. Luckily, it was pulled out unscathed. I’ve rescued plenty of kids from locked cars, but this was a first.”