Every year the National Insurance Crime Bureau releases a list of the cars that have been most reported stolen in the United States.
These aren’t exactly luxury vehicles. If a flashy paint job and bank-breaking sticker price doesn’t make for the most-stolen car, what does? It has to do with what cars are easy to steal, and what thieves can sell easily for a good price. From our article “Why Thieves Steal Soap”:
As Frank Scafidi of the NICB explains, part of the explanation is that there are simply “gazillions” of these cars on the road and their lack of newer anti theft technology makes them easier to steal. But the real reason thieves target them is for their lucrative parts. “Investigations often lead us to chop shops,” he tells us, “Supporting the reality that those cars are stolen for parts.” Since so many people need their old Camry or Honda Accord fixed, there is a robust market for spare parts, and many chop shops will happily fence stolen parts.
Honda Accords were the overall most-stolen car in United States in 2013, but that wasn’t the case everywhere. This makes sense, because different cars are popular in different states.
In a few states, thieves made off with more Honda Civics, or with more non-Honda sedans in Rhode Island, Vermont, and Michigan. Thefts of Chevy and Ford pickup trucks — the third and fourth most stolen cars of 2013 — predominated in large chunks of the country. And in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Maryland, the most stolen vehicle was the Dodge Caravan minivan.
This post was written by Rosie Cima; you can follow her on Twitter here. To get occasional notifications when we write blog posts, please sign up for our email list