It's the kind of bizarre crime that leaves even police officers shaking their head in a c****ination of amusement and dismay. It started a week ago, when a man walked into a Melbourne, Australia car dealership and asked the salesman if he could take a Honda Accord sedan out for a test drive.

Sensing a sale, the dealer obliged, giving the man the keys and telling him to assess the vehicle. And he appears to have done just that. The would-be motorist's exam took him six days and 3,200 kilometres, before cops finally caught up with him in another part of the country.

Experts say the trip this alleged car thief took was equivalent to driving from London, England to Istanbul, Turkey.

The dealership became suspicious when its prospective customer didn't return after a few minutes. But where was he? It turns out the man stepped on the gas and drove from the big city into the Australian outback and beyond. He was only caught when he was allegedly involved in yet another scam - failing to pay for a fill-up, after the car's fuel tank hit empty.

Cops finally cornered him on Thursday in the city of Darwin after they set up a road block to stop him. (See the full route here.) Experts believe to make the distance he did in the time available he would have had to stay in the vehicle all day, every day from the moment his 'test drive' began.

Meanwhile, 3,000 kilometres away, salesman Ian McKenzie admitted he had no idea that the man who took the keys was going to bolt. "He seemed a legitimate gentleman," he told a local newspaper. "He stood at the desk right in front of a camera. He wasn't afraid of being photographed or videoed."

There's no word on why he allegedly committed the crime or where he was planning to go. The suspect has been charged with aggravated unlawful use of a motor vehicle and unlawful possession of property.

He was in court on Thursday, driven there under police guard in what turned out to be a much shorter trip than the one cops say he'd just taken.