The Highway Data Loss Institute has churned out its official list of vehicles with the highest and lowest insurance claims for theft. The study combines the rate of insurance claims per vehicle as well as the cost of those claims, helping companies that supply coverage determine exactly how much to charge us poor saps. The Cadillac Escalade took top honors this year with $146 in theft loss payments per insured vehicle, per year. On average, ins
Maybe it's the mass inebriation that makes it easier, but New Year's Eve is apparently hottest holiday for car theft. If the whole world is already sleeping it off, there's no way anybody is going to pay heed to your stupid alarm, perhaps.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations has shut down a car theft ring operating in the U.S. for more than 20 years, causing in excess of $25 million in losses to owners and banks. According to CNN, the ring would clone cars, swiping the legal identity of one car – VIN numbers, tags, stickers -- and applying it to another, stolen car. The cloned car would then be sold to a dealer or consumer, and the countdown would begin: Eventually, most would be discovered as stolen property and confiscate
A busted car theft ring has turned up a vintage Cadillac once owned by one of the Magnificent Seven. The five-finger-discount drivers out of Colorado, headed by Jeffrey Earle Piper, would steal expensive rental cars, change their VIN numbers and "sell" them. The new "owner", who was in on the whole thing, would then report "his" car stolen and collect on the insurance policy. One of the cars found among the loot: a $133,000 1959 Cadillac – looks like a Series 62 convertible – that on
Drumroll please! The 2008 Top 10 most popular cars among car thieves are... The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Highway Loss Data Institute recently released their list of the top 10 most stolen vehicles for 2008, and trucks and SUVs are the biggest target. We wonder
Finding a stash of vehicles left to rot can be exciting, like if they're in a barn and they're vintage and would have some high collectible value once fixed up. Finding a stash of cars left to rot at the bottom of a lake, well, that's a downer for everyone. Authorities in Camas, Washington (the state) recently pulled five gutted cars from Lacamas Lake, all of which had been stolen: two Hondas, two Acuras, and a Chevy Tahoe. The lake's water level is low this time of year, which allowed boaters t
This one may seem like a no-brainer, but it's probably not a good idea to hide the spare keys for your first and second car inside your... uh, car. Perhaps you can already tell where we're going with this... for the sake of the story, though, we'll continue. What might happen if your car were stolen? You'd be giving a thief keys to the car they just stole, plus, as a bonus, the keys to your other car.
Browsing through eBay, it us quite common to come across an ad for an older car that is without a title. Before bidding on the item, perhaps it would be a good idea to make sure that the seller has the right to sell the car. Case in point: Bruce Rask of Rainier, Oregon just received his 1940 Plymouth sedan back 21 years after it was originally reported stolen. It is unclear where the car went after being stolen in August of 1986, but it was recently purchased by a m
Today's tale involving the questionable decision-making skills of criminals comes from Norwalk, CT. It seems that one Jazrahel King had visited the Wholesalers of America used car lot on Main
From the bible of the collector car world comes a cautionary tale of a stolen Shelby and a good lesson in caveat emptor. John Draneas of Collector Car Market recounts the story of a 1965 Shelby GT350 that was stolen back in 1979. The insurance company paid the owner $6500 and the vehicle was never seen from again. Well, not with its original serial number at any rate. While running a cursory check of eBay, Shelby American Automobile Club Registrar Howard Pardee came across a nice looking '65 GT3
If this doesn't make you chuckle, chances are nothing will. Dallas police apparently have an APB out for a stolen car with no description and no last known whereabouts. A vehicle used by Dallas police to catch unsuspecting would-be car thieves was stolen over the weekend. The "bait" car had been equipped with cameras, a remote engine kill switch, and some type of tracking system, but still managed to disappear sometime between Friday and Monday. Police were not releasing info about the type of c
The National Insurance Crime Bureau had good news and bad news for U.S. car owners Tuesday - the good news is that theft rates were down 2.1 percent in the first half of 2005 compared to 2004, marking the second straight year of theft decline. The bad news? If you live in the West, you're in car thief heaven.
