Car tattoos aren’t new. For £12.95, the boy-racer department of Halfords will sell you a nasty-looking “tribal” tattoo cut out of vinyl and ready to paste on to your souped-up Fiat Cinquecento for a night burning round the Burger King car park.

What’s new is that car tattoos have become rather fabulous. Infectious is a start-up company based in San Francisco that has commissioned lots of trendy underground artists we’ve never heard of. The art is printed on to stickers sturdy enough to survive the carwash, but removable with a hairdryer when you sell the car. £72 gets you a huge pink devil sex octopus designed by manga artist Junko Mizuno. Put it on your Vauxhall Astra and the school run will never be the same again.

Unfortunately, Infectious is an island of style in a sea of ghastly. At CarTatts, you can buy a foot-high leprechaun sticker for just £5, or a bonnet-sized unicorn bearing your name on a scroll round its neck for £7. Classy.

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