Here's what $170,000 in cash looks like sitting in the back of a truck as owner buys new car

The weird scene as workers shift the money from the back of a truck.

Would you accept your lottery winning jackpot in cash? If you ever wondered how much space real cash takes up, this story will open your eyes.

A gas station owner in China paid for a new car worth $168,000 in coin and $3,215 in bank notes.

What was surprising was not how much space the money took - the 4.5 tons of cash took up the back of a truck and 12 sq ft of space in the showroom - but why he had to pay with metal in the first place.

Buyer Mr Gan explained to the Liaoshen Evening News that he had collected the huge amount of coins and notes through the petrol station where he works.

"As our station is in the suburbs, there are very few banks. So we didn't deposit the coins and decided to use them to buy a car for our company," he says.

Staff at the car company at the dealership in Liaoning province, east China, were pre-warned about the impending arrival of the coins.

It took 10 staff members over an hour to unload the truck. No word yet on what model the buyer chose.