The National Insurance Crime Bureau has released its annual report on the most stolen cars in America, and despite overall auto thefts being down (per the FBI's early version of their Uniform Crime Report), the same old cars have made the list of most-sought-after by car thieves.
According to the NICB, the 1995 Honda Civic (right) was the most stolen car of 2007, maintaining that distinction for the past four years. I drive a ’98 Civic and I'm lucky my car hasn't been stolen (yet), despite it getting older, uglier and more dented by the day.
All this time I thought driving an ugly old car was a good preventative against it being stolen.
However, many thieves steal certain cars for their parts rather than their bling factor. Cars that have long-term reliability (like Hondas), as well as cars with several-year streaks without a major redesign, can be valuable because their components last a long time and can be interchangeable between model-years.
Other old cars on the list
This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2008.