A whopping 6ft-long Godzilla-like monitor lizard was found keeping warm in a family's car engine.

Footage shows the reptile's tail sticking out of the engine in Phang Nga province, Thailand on February 1. Its head and most of its body were deep inside the vehicle and wouldn't come out.

When the driver and onlookers worked together to pull the creature, they were shocked as it revealed to measure up to 6ft-long, which was taller than most of them.

Onlooker Maylin said the reptile was keeping warm inside the car during the current winter cool season which seems temperatures fall below 20 degrees Celsius at night.

Maylin added: ‘We don't know how the lizard entered the engine. It was so big and didn't want to come out.'

The monitor lizard resisted and went deeper into the car so the driver had to ask the mechanics to remove some of the parts.

While they pulled out some wires on the engine, the reptile crawled below the car where a local caught its head and finally took it out.

He was seen grabbing the lizard using bare hands and triumphantly raising the creature to show its size. It was unhurt and placed in an empty rice sack.

They released the lizard back into the wild while the car was taken for repair although the driver said that the insurance company had covered the fees.

Asian water monitor lizards normally live in canals, swamps, sewers and ponds in cities in Thailand. They feed on fish, snakes, frogs and scraps of food left by humans.

The reptiles are aggressive when threatened and have a mildly venomous bite which sometimes carries harmful bacteria. The Godzilla-like reptiles are also a protected species in the country so their population thrives.