A FLEETWOOD motor body repairer had a Bean-feast of publicity this week after TV star Rowan Atkinson's £600,000 dream car ended up in his garage.

Car-crazy Atkinson, whose bumbling Mr Bean character is notoriously accident prone, smashed up his McLaren F1 super car by running into the back of a Metro at Ellel, near Lancaster, on Monday afternoon (October 25).

Luckily neither he nor the couple in the Metro suffered injury but the front of the McLaren - the fastest road car ever built - was smashed to smithereens.

Step forward Wyreview motors, who loaded it up and transported it to their workshop in Kilbane Street, Fleetwood, where it remained overnight until staff from McLaren arrived to take it back to their Surrey base.

"It is the most expensive car I've ever had in my garage by a long way," said Wyreview owner Malcolm Edgington, who drove Atkinson on to his destination in Carlisle as part of their normal customer service - but, like Mr Bean, the star was mute.

"He didn't say a word all the way," said Malcolm. "I tried to make conversation but I suppose he wouldn't want to say anything in case it got to the press."

However, at the accident scene, Atkinson had been very concerned about the couple in the other car, driver Margaret Greenhalgh, 62, and her husband, Robert, 57, and promised to keep in touch.

Atkinson owns several other upmarket motors, including a Bentley, a Mercedes and an Aston Martin, but the McLaren - one of only 150 ever built - was said to be his pride and joy.

"It is repairable," said Malcolm's wife, Barbara. "It looks worse than it is with it being fibreglass."

Police are carrying out an accident investigation.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.