The theft of high value SUVs and the like has been highly publicised over the last few years and one insurer alone has had over £2m worth of Range Rovers stolen in a single year, but we are also seeing the theft of more modern classics.
Last year we had a 1996 Porsche, worth £225,000 stolen which was left in the open overnight in Central London whilst in the course of a journey. It was not fitted with a tracker and was never found. We also had the loss of an £80,000 Audi RS which had no tracker and was not recovered but a similar £60,000 RS with a tracker which was found and recovered in half an hour.
A worrying development is the ability for someone to buy a relatively cheap scanner which can duplicate the frequency of a car key and then use it to gain entry to the car. With this degree of sophistication we are seeing a resurgence in the use of “old fashioned ” physical devices like Steering Locks when leaving a car parked in the open .
Generally speaking classic car owners are resistant to putting modern trackers on their classics cars but there are specialists in classic car tracking systems which are much simpler and cheaper to fit than those on more complex modern cars.
Many “volume” classics like E types have significantly high values but very little in the way of security other than door locks. There are enough of these models around to make them viable targets for theft to order. An insurance policy may well settle the financial loss but cannot replace the sentimental loss of a much loved car.
