The son of a Te Puke man woke to his worst nightmare when he found himself pulling his father from underneath a car engulfed in flames.

His 42-year-old father was working on his car at about 4am Thursday, when it burst into flames on top of him, waking up his son, his son's wife and their two children aged five and seven.

The remains of a car that exploded on top of a Te Puke man. Photos by: Zoe Hunter

The man's son, who did not want to be named, says he woke to see his father attempting to put the flames out with the garden hose.

His first reaction was to yell at his father before he pulled him to safety and phoned the Fire Brigade.

'You don't really take it all in when it's that early in the morning.”

The Fire Brigade gave instructions for the son to move his father into the shower and under water before emergency services arrived at 4.25am.

The man sustained burns to his face, hands and upper torso and remains in an induced coma at Waikato Hospital.

The burns covered 30per cent of his body. He was initially taken to Tauranga Hospital before his condition was upgraded to serious and was transferred to Waikato Hospital later this morning.

The son says the car had problems with the fuel pump and was one of the reasons his father was still working on it so early in the morning.

'He was getting it ready. He wanted to take it out yesterday.”

Where his father wanted to take it out was a mystery to the son, but says he would have just wanted to take it for a drive.

'It was his project car,” says the man's daughter-in-law.

The man does not live at the address, but his son says his father stays at the Fairview Place address from time to time.

His father has been working on the Holden Commodore for about a month.

It is believed petrol vapours ignited causing the fire.