For many new parents, there is only one guaranteed solution to putting their baby down at the end of the day – a night-time drive that soothes, calms and eventually helps the little one nod off.

With this in mind, Ford has developed a cot that could simulate – in the comfort of your own home – the motion, engine noise, and even the street lighting of those night‑time drives - and no, this isn’t a late April fools story.

To all appearances a regular cot, the Max Motor Dreams comes to life using a smartphone app. This enables it to record and then reproduce the comforting movement, lights and sounds of a particular car journey.

Ford has cited research that shows parents can typically expect little more than five hours sleep a night while losing the equivalent of 44 days sleep in just the first year of their child’s life.

“After many years of talking to mums and dads, we know that parents of newborns are often desperate for just one good night’s sleep. But while a quick drive in the family car can work wonders in getting baby off to sleep, the poor old parents still have to be awake and alert at the wheel,” said Max Motor Dreams designer Alejandro López Bravo, of Spanish creative studio Espada y Santa Cruz, which produced the award-winning design. “The Max Motor Dreams could make the everyday lives of a lot of people a little bit better.”

For now the Max Motor Dreams is a one-off pilot, but following numerous enquiries, Ford says it is considering putting the unique cot into full‑scale production.