A teenage girl couldn't believe her eyes when the car she was driving burst into flames seconds after she hopped out of it.
Skyla Douglas had been driving with friends for lunch in Mt Maunganui yesterday when they noticed something was not right.
"I was just pulling into the park with my friends when we saw smoke and we could smell it. At first we thought it overheated and wouldn't be too bad but as we were hopping out of the car we realised there was a lot of smoke."
The engine of the blue Peugeot 206 was on fire.
Douglas said a man driving past alerted them to sparks coming from the bonnet.