TENACITY paid off for a Taunton couple who took on the might of car manufacturer Vauxhall and won.

A campaign headed by engineer Dan Hunt led to MPs slamming the vehicle maker's "reckless disregard for safety" after a fire risk was discovered in its Zafiras.

The Transport Select Committee branded Vauxhall "morally reprehensible" for not warning customers of the problem sooner and said the company was too slow to take action over the fires.

Mr Hunt, of Bridgwater Road, took up the cause after it emerged that fires had been starting in the heating and ventilation systems of several Zafira B cars.

Mr Hunt's wife, Jo, welcomed the committee's damning report, saying: "I'm really pleased to see the Government has backed up what we've been saying all along.

"It's absolutely astounding and the driving force behind this was Dan.

"The DVSA has said this wouldn't have got so far without so much information from our group, which was started on Facebook by two women from Plymouth.

"When Dan heard about the fires, he investigated and said, 'I know why they're starting'. He spent months and months investigating, including tests on our own Zafira, which nearly went up in flames.

"Vauxhall didn't want to know and only went public much later."

Mrs Hunt is hoping Vauxhall gets prosecuted and is appealing for Zafira B owners, even if their cars have not gone up in flames, to get in touch.

"We're speaking to a solicitor with a view to suing Vauxhall - people who have had fires or whose cars have been devalued because of what's happened," added Mrs Hunt.

"We've still got our Zafira, but we'll never touch Vauxhall again. The company is very lucky no deaths have been caused by the fires.

Louise Ellman, chairman of the Transport Select Committee, said Vauxhall was "too slow to acknowledge drivers' concerns, too slow to begin an investigation, too slow to address the causes and too slow to alert drivers of real safety concerns".

The first reported Zafira fire came to light in 2009, but Vauxhall failed to launch an investigation until 2015 after it had logged 161 fires.

A spokesman for Vauxhall, which has so far carried out two recalls on 183,172 vehicles, apologised to drivers, saying safety is its top priority and lessons have been learned.

He added: "We have made changes to the way we investigate cases of vehicle fire and improvements to our recall process to ensure we complete recalls swiftly and minimise customer inconvenience.

"While we recognise that undertaking two recalls was inconvenient for Zafira B customers, we maintain that the first recall was necessary based on our investigations.

"As soon as we had identified the issue, we made it clear to customers in the recall letters how they should operate the heating and ventilation system to keep them safe.

"We have made very good progress with the second recall, which will provide a final fix to the problem."