A father has fumed his £40,000 Aston Martin has been written off after hitting a massive pothole.
Andrew McQueen, 52, was driving back from Peppa Pig World with his 10-year-old daughter Poppy when the front wheel of his luxury sportscar was ripped off by the giant crater.
The furniture designer from Tetbury, Gloucestershire, said his family were 'lucky to be alive' after he lost control in his DB9 and zig-zagged down the road in Wiltshire at 40mph
Mr McQueen said: 'We were on our way home when I saw these craters – you couldn’t even call them potholes – in the road.
'There wasn’t just one, there were loads of them in one big clump all over the road for a few hundred yards.
'It didn’t matter if you were going left or right, you were going through them.
'I had no real route to get around it, so when we hit the crater I was trying to brake and turn at the time but it was useless as I just would have hit another one.
'There was a gigantic bang which made the whole car shudder and we were zig-zagging a couple hundred yards down the road with no brakes because they had been ripped out.
'Thankfully the car behind us stopped - we were lucky to be alive because we could have hit oncoming traffic or a tree.'
The pothole took the entire front wheel off his 'dream car' – which Andrew said is now likely to be written off
Mr Mcqueen said that by the time he had seen the pothole, he was already going through it at 40mph
The pair had to wait for hours in the dark for a mechanic to come and collect them.
Wiltshire Council has now said it will complete 'emergency repair works' in the area.
Mr McQueen said what made him angry was seeing how his daughter blamed herself after the accident.
He said: 'We were all shook up and I had hurt my shoulder fighting with the steering wheel.
'Thankfully my daughter wasn't hurt but what made me angry was when [Poppy] started crying in the back of the car on the way home.
'She said to me that it was "all her fault because she made us go to Peppa Pig World" and [said that] now my Aston Martin was written off and it was my dream car.
'We had some great memories in the car and I’ve wanted one since I was a child, but honestly when it sank in later that night I was just thinking how lucky we were to have not been killed or have ended up in hospital!'
The father-of-one said he is hoping to raise awareness of potholes and has emailed his MP and put pressure on Wiltshire council to fix them.
Andrew McQueen, 52, was driving home from a trip to Peppa Pig World with Poppy, 10
Wiltshire Council have now said it will complete 'emergency repair works' in the area
He added: 'The more people that know about it the better so they can avoid the road and get it fixed.
'It doesn’t matter what car you’ve got - we all pay our road tax so why haven’t they looked after these roads?
'I was more concerned with getting my daughter back to school and I’m just happy we are all safe.
'But it would have been a different matter if Poppy had got hurt!'
Martin Smith, cabinet member for Highways at Wiltshire Council, said: 'I am very sorry to hear about this incident.
'We are aware of the condition of the A346 and will be carrying out emergency repair works in the area where this incident occurred.'
