Pick up a nice little runner at the car auctions, tax it, insure it and fill it up with enough petrol to get you from London to Newcastle and back and you'll still have enough change left out of £200 to buy a Magic Tree air freshener.

Cheaper than the train?

Attempt to buy two peak time train tickets for the same 635-mile journey and you could be forking out £314, according to Auto Express magazine.

Though trundling up the motorway for five hours in a second-hand Sierra is arguably less salubrious than letting the train take the strain for a mere three hours and 20 minutes (delays, cancellations and leaves on the line permitting), the £114 saving may tempt some.

Taken to its logical (or perhaps illogical) conclusion, the car versus train argument can be extended to compare the prices of a whole range of vehicles.

"I don't have the Tube fare ... I'll have to hitch hike"

A ticket for travel in the city centre, between Covent Garden and Leicester Square on the Piccadilly Line, will set you back £1.50.

Since the stops are a mere 300 metres apart, that equates to £8.04 per mile.

Space travel has proved to be one of the more expensive human endeavours.

When space tourist Dennis Tito blasted off for the International Space Station, he had had to shell out a massive £14m for the pleasure.

However, given that the 60-year-old financier travelled around the world hundreds of times during his six-day holiday, he was paying a bargain £5.61 per mile.