Top 10 Auto Thieves’ Favorite Vehicles!

Motor vehicle theft plagues all parts of the world and despite many efforts to curtail it, it still remains quite a pain for both the victims sometimes as well as law enforcement agencies. However many countries show a declining trend in motor vehicle thefts. Further, the thieves seem to have a greater affinity for some automobiles.

Often referred to as grand theft auto by police departments, the act of stealing motor vehicles has many motivations. And range from chopping and selling automotive parts to resale of vehicles and even for joyriding. In the year 2003 there were 1,261,226 cases of auto thefts in the U.S. which further decreased to 1,237,114 in 2004 showing a decline of 1.91%. The following are the thieves’ favorite cars in the USA based on 2004 data.

#1: Honda Civic: Introduced in July 1972 as a two-door coupe, the Honda Civic is the second-longest continuously running nameplate from a Japanese manufacturer. Now five generations old, it has won quite a few accolades throughout its history. Some of them include Road Test magazine’s 1974 Car of the Year; Motor Trend's Import Car of the Year; Car and Driver magazine's annual Ten Best; North American Car of the Year and the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) Car of the Year.

#2: Toyota Camry: Now over 6 generations old the Toyota Camry is a mid-size car assembled by Toyota. Launched in the year 1980 it’s manufactured at several places around the world, viz. Tsutsumi, Japan; Georgetown, Kentucky; Altona, Victoria, Australia and Guangzhou, China. In the year 2007 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conferred a five-star safety rating for frontal crashes for both driver and passenger to the car (whether a thief or not!). You might want to take a peek into an innovation in air bag safety that recently came about.

#3: Honda Accord: The car made its debut in the year 1976 as a compact hatchback and later grew up in to an intermediate vehicle. Now 8 generations old, the vehicle has received several awards such as the Consumer Search's Best Family Car, Motor Trend's Import Car of the Year, Car of the Year Japan, etc. The car has also been featuring at the European Touring Car scene since 1995. Perhaps, it high value plus the “race-ability” is what makes it attractive for a steal and run operation! Off course, they can split apart its various automotive accessories and the engine and sell it to make money.

#4: The Dodge Caravan: The Dodge Caravan and Dodge Grand Caravan are minivans manufactured by Chrysler. The sister models of the product were the Chrysler Town and Country, and the Plymouth Voyager that later became the Chrysler Voyager. Being produced since the year 1984, the automobile is now in its fifth generation.

#5: Chevrolet Full Size C/K 1500 Pickup: This full-size pickup truck line from Chevrolet continued production from 1960 until 1998. The light-duty pickup truck was replaced with the GMC Sierra in 1988 and the Chevrolet Silverado in 1999.

#6: Ford F150 Series: The whole of F-Series from Ford Motor Company has been quite popular and has sold for over 5 decades. With the first ones produced in 1948, the most popular variant of the F-Series full-size pickup trucks is the F-150. It has been an immensely popular vehicle in the United States for 23 years in addition to being one of the best selling trucks for 31 years.

#7: Dodge Ram Pickup: The Ram is yet another full-size pickup truck from Chrysler LLC's Dodge brand. The Ram's head hood ornament was used by the company way back in 1933 to symbolize toughness of these trucks. The symbol was however dropped in the 1950s only to be brought up again 1981.

#8: Acura Integra: First produced in the year 1985, the Honda Integra, was sold as Acura in North America and as a Honda in other parts of the world. Sold both as a sedan and hatchback, the vehicle is a sporty front-wheel drive. Its position vis-a-vis other cars in the Honda lineup, the Integra was falls in the middle, just about the smaller cars like the Honda City, the Honda Civic and the Honda Logo.

#9: The Toyota Pickup: The Toyota Hilux and Toyota Tacoma are both compact pickup trucks built and marketed by the company. The Hilux name was adopted in 1969, until it was renamed the Tacoma in 1995.

#10: Nissan Sentra: This compact car from Nissan, competes with other compact models such as the Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus, Chevrolet Cobalt, Mitsubishi Lancer, VW Jetta, and Honda Civic in the United States. The Nissan Sentra was brought out for the 1982 model year as the US export name for the vehicle Nissan Sunny.

So now you know which are the most popular makes amongst the thieves’ must have lists. However, it’s encouraging to know, as it appears, that the thieves with the passage of time are finding it quite difficult to steal in the USA, see below for the trend.

The Interpol data on auto thefts further clarifies which automobiles are the hottest amongst the ‘stealy folks.’ Look below for the percentage of vehicles and their owners who are victimized across the globe.

The Interpol data pertains to the year 2007 that shows 4.2 million incidents of stealing across 149 countries. However, the hopeful part is that over 37,000 motor vehicles have been discovered.

In the UK, the fall in vehicle-related theft has been to the tune of 10 percent between 2002/03 and 2003/04. The trend is evident from the following illustration.

On the other hand the whole of Europe witnessed and estimated 450,000 stealing incidents in 2004. In Canada, motor vehicle thievery accounted for 171,017 missing vehicles in 2003. And in Australia, barring Queensland there were 8718 reported incidents of motor vehicle theft in 2007.

On the whole, the law enforcement agencies seem to be winning the battle against the perpetrators of auto theft, but it’s still a long way to go before auto theft is almost eliminated.