Honey, I crashed the Barina

The Barina in the ‘Buy My Barina’ ad that went viral has been crashed and gone to the car park in the sky.

The banged up Holden Barina in the ‘Buy My Barina’ ad that went viral earlier this year -- with 1.2 million hits and counting -- has crashed and gone to the big car park in the sky.

The 1999 model of various fading colours with more than 188,000km on the clock became a worldwide hit after advertising agency guru David Johns created an elaborate YouTube clip as if it were for a new car, with such honesty as “matching seats” and “10 months rego”.

The Barina bomb was sold to NRMA Insurance for an undisclosed sum, who donated the money to the Cancer Council.

The insurer then used the Barina in a crash test, but not before it remade the advertisement in the original style.

Worse still, the insurer crashed it in front of the original seller and creator of the ad, Sydney-based David Johns.

The Barina will now be broken down for scrap after it has been used in displays showing the difference in safety between new and old vehicles.

Crash tests show, in a serious collision, you are more likely to die or be severely injured in a car without airbags that one with airbags and a modern body structure.

"Drivers can be about 10 times more likely to die or be seriously injured in a crash driving a used car with a poor safety record compared with a top performer," said Royal Automobile Club of Queensland spokesman Steve Spalding.

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