For sale: your body

The latest big idea in advertising could involve you and your wheels - Simon Hacker

We're used to seeing ads on buses, vans - everywhere we look on the street. We're also happy to lend free advertising space to brands by wearing their names on our clothes... so how about turning your car into a mobile billboard?

Slogans and images from Aldi and Asda might not be your dream auto accessory. Likewise, pimping your wheels out for a phone ad, or maybe to flag up what's on the telly tonight, isn't necessarily the message you want to project from the side of your pride and joy.

But it seems not everyone agrees, since more than 15,000 car owners in the UK have now formed an orderly queue to rent their bodywork out to a sponsorship scheme run by Car Quids.

Typical returns for joining the scheme ranges from £50 up to £100 per month.

Car Quids describes itself as an online marketplace that connect brands looking to create marketing campaigns with regular drivers so that they can advertise on their cars in a highly targeted way. If you sign up, you take your car to one of the firm's depots where it is clad in vinyl publicity for the duration of your chosen ad scheme. Payment rates depend on where and how much you drive.

The idea took off in 2015, but took some time to find advertisers willing to try this new route to publicity. By the end of this year though, Car Quids has some big household names on board including Pizza Hut, Easy Car Club and Casumo and has been expanding into Scotland with a prominent publicity campaign in Edinburgh

Spokesman Drummond Gilbert told Avon Tuning: "Regular car owners can sign up for new Car Quids advertising campaigns at carquids.com providing they have a car that is 2009 or newer."

So are you sold on the idea, or would renting your body be a step too far?