A bargain hunter purchased a car in London and drove it all the way to Bristol after discovering that it was cheaper than a return train ticket.

Tom Church, 27, purchased the 21-year-old Honda Civic after he became fed up with sky-high train fares.

He bought the second hand vehicle, along with road tax, insurance and petrol for £206.81 – more than £10 less than the price of a £218.10 return train ticket.

He paid just £80 for the car, along with road tax of £81.38, one day of insurance for £20.43 and £25 of petrol.

Tom, the founder of LatestDeals.co.uk, purchased the Civic after noticing it online – despite its owner originally intending to sell it for scrap.

‘I found the car on Gumtree. The lady I bought it from, Sutinder, was basically selling it for scrap’, he told The Sun.

View photos Tom purchased the car after seeing the extortionate price of a train ticket (LatestDeals.Co.Uk) More

‘It’s a very old car, 1997 Honda Civic, but the MOT was fine. Plus, the engine was small enough that I could get the cheapest road tax: a minimum of six months for £81.38.

‘The total cost was £206.81. Less than just ONE train ticket. And I still have a car at the end of it.’

And while the 21-year-old motor survived the three-and-a-half hour trip, Tom is now planning to flog it once more.

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‘You may be able to use a railcard. Or you could get a coach. But for those of us who aren’t able to, why do the train companies insist on ripping us off?’ he said.

‘At the end of the trip, I still have a car. I’ll probably sell it again. After some TLC, I think I can get £200. You get your unused road tax refunded so I might even be in profit! That’s real bargain hunting for you.’

He added: ‘The point is to show how mad train ticket prices are. Sometimes you have to think outside of the box to save money.

‘However, I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t the cheapest method. You can book tickets in advance and off-peak for less.’

Tom’s ingenuity comes after a similar scheme by self styled ‘Coupon Kid’ Jordan Cox, who flew from Sheffield to Essex via Berlin in a bid to save money on train fares in 2016.

‘It might take a bit longer for you to get there and back, but you might never have the chance to go there again. I got to see a lot more than I would have done peering out of the window of a train in the UK’, he admitted at the time.