VIDEO: Northampton car showroom launches world's first SELF-SERVICE aisle

Similar to supermarket scanners, customers of Imperial Car Supermarket in Bedford Road, can now process payments for vehicles worth up to £50,000 at an “unsupervised” terminal.

The prototype, christened The Fast Lane, aims to and make buying cars as normal as the “weekly big shop.”

Operations director, Neil Smith, said: “We’re always looking for new ways to make the experience of buying a car with us as convenient and enjoyable as possible.

“Self-service checkouts have been around at supermarkets for years, so now we’re all comfortable using them – minus the odd ‘unexpected-item-in-bagging-area’ fiasco.”

Once the customer has picked the car they want to buy from the showroom and filled out the necessary legal forms, they are handed the keys. The soon-to-be owners can then literally drive the car through the whole payment process, from start to finish.

The checkout works by scanning a code underneath of the car, which then prompts the customer to pay by card from behind the wheel.

Once the payment has gone through, the customer is then given the green light to drive straight out of the showroom under a five-day insurance policy.

For more information head to www.imperialcarsupermarkets.co.uk.