The sound of a purring engine usually means a car is in good working order but for AA patrolman Tony Philpott it meant quite the opposite.

On Christmas day he was called out to an address in Nutley after a woman discovered a mischievous moggy had climbed into her motor.

The woman had gone outside between midday and 1pm and heard miaowing. When she lifted the bonnet of her Volkswagon Golf she saw the cat was stuck underneath the gearbox.

Mr Philpott had to remove some of the engine to release the cat which he believes had crawled into the car while the engine was still warm.

This call was just one of dozens of unusual call-outs by AA patrolmen across the country this year.

One of the strangest callouts the AA had in Sussex was to 20 Vikings whose van was stuck in the mud.

They had been part of a re-enactment group who were stranded between Robertsbridge and Hastings.

An AA spokesman said: "We towed the van out with a rope. They had become stuck because of the bad weather.

"It was quite funny coming round the corner in the van and seeing about 20 Vikings all dressed up and carrying swords and shields which they were waving in the air."

Last year, 3.3 million motorists were rescued by the AA in Britain. The most common cause for calling out the AA was flat tyres and battery problems.

Patrols also helped 81,000 members who had locked their keys in the car and rescued more than 2,000 children and pets trapped in locked cars.

The AA towed three quarters of a million vehicles across 12.6 million miles this year and Monday was the busiest day of the week for breakdowns.

In the summer, the AA were kept busy in Sussex when there were flash floods on the A272 near Newick, rescuing people from their cars which were stuck in 3ft to 4ft of water.

The most breakdowns in one day was on January 2, 2007, with 16,138 call-outs.

A spokesman for the AA said: "We have also invested on keeping motorists off the hard shoulder over the past 12 months, introducing both Fuel Assist, a specialist roadside service which drains, flushes and replenishes misfuelled vehicles on the spot and podcasts featuring advice from AA patrols on how to change a tyre, to the best way to load and pack your car."