Parallel Parking

Fiat has created an interactive billboard in Germany that uses ultrasonic sensors and video to help people parallel park.

Alastair Moffatt has twice held the record twice for the tightest parallel parking job, his reign broken twice by Han Yue, who did it last time in November 2014. Moffatt couldn't let that stand, so he provisionally broke it again in a Fiat 500C at the recent Autosport International Show in Birmingham.

Whenever this writer thinks of fancy parking jobs, we go straight to Buddy Love singing Strokin' in a red Dodge Viper he slides into a tiny space in The Nutty Professor. But after watching the video above, we might have to start thinking about Han Yue, who broke the world record for getting into the tightest parallel parking space. The previous record was set in July 2013 by Alastair Moffatt, who had 3.4 inches to spare between his car and those around. Yue used a Mini Cooper at the China Drift

A Chinese driver squeaked into the world record books by earning the title of tightest parallel parking job last week.

To combat parking phobia and unintentional rear-endings, Mercedes-Benz has a solution. Take the driver out of the equation.

A group of Irish students captured this video of a driver attempting to parallel park – for half an hour.

Brothers John and Alastair Moffatt break the world record for parallel parking after squeezing their mini into a tight space

It looks as if Mini didn't get to hold onto its Guinness World Record for the tightest parallel parking job for all that long. German stunt driver Ronny Wechselberger managed to slide a Volkswagen Up! into a space of just 12 feet and 0.88 inches. Given that the three-door Up! takes up a full 11 feet and 7.37 inches of space itself, the remaining room front and rear was less than the length of a Bic pen. The margin makes the Mini effort seem down right spacious by comparison. Ronny C' Rock, as th

Europeans, as we know, take their football (our soccer) seriously – it isn't until a team wins that their fans can stop being so focused and have some serious fun. Exhibit A: after the German national team beat Argentina in Euro 2012, some chaps still full of cheer (and beer, presumably) came upon this woman trying to slot her tiny Citroën C2 into an equally tiny parking spot. Naturally, they decided she could use a cheer of her own. It is guaranteed this did not happen after the Germ

Electronic nannies have become so prevalent in cars that they've even taken over even the simple act of parking. Luxury cars have offered parallel parking assist systems for a while now, but these days you can get automatic parking tech on cars as mainstream as the Ford Focus.

Big city parking blows. You're either fighting the vultures to get a spot on the street, or paying a king's ransom to park off it. (Let's not even talk about parking tickets.) And if you want to own a nice car? Fuhgeddaboudit. Because there are always guys like this, who won't think twice about "fitting" their beater Camry into a spot sized for a Yaris.

Auto journalist Ezra Dyer has thrown down the parking gauntlet on the Lincoln MKT in a battle for ultimate supremacy. Dyer fancies himself a fairly skilled parallel parker, and wanted to test his mettle against the self-park feature on the MKT. Armed with a tape measure, a video camera and a healthy distrust of all things mechanical, man squared off against crossover.

Crazy Russian parking job – Click above to watch the video after the jump

We've heard this before: men are better at parking than women. It sounds like a bunch of macho male ego BS that's been perpetuated since the days of Leave it to Beaver (happy 94th birthday, Barbra Billingsley!) and Father Knows Best, but the U.K.'s Telegraph reports that a study shows that this myth may not be far from reality.

Parallel parking isn't difficult, but we have generally found ways to make it so. Between cars that almost kinda park for you to those with video game displays that turn parking into a Microsoft Flight Simulator landing attempt to the automated cars that park themselves (a frickin' robot! To park!), getting a car into a space couldn't be more complex.

Click above to view the YouTube clips after the jump

No smartass comments about women drivers, capisce? It could just as easily have been a man at the wheel trying to squeeze 12 feet of car into 10 feet of parking space. While we do admire her determination, we question her depth perception, and her social graces. Perhaps it was a mild case of road rage that apparently leads her to take a swig of amaretto after several passes. We'll probably never know. She still seems to do a better job than the Lexus self-parking system as tested by the guys at

As a woman, I find the various gadgets making it easier to operate your everyday automobile fascinating. A sensor to check your blind spot for you? Brilliant. Adaptive suspension? Perfect for more sophisticated drivers. But even more fascinating, however, is the subsequent impact upon the "guy things" about operating the automobile.