This Surely Cant Be Hard To Find - Thieving Scum

[RStu]

Wankers. Gutted for him, I never thought of all the lurkers taking info on these sort of things

[Paul]

That's real bad news. Booby traps are the way forward.

[bortaf]

Not to far from me, i'll keep an eye out when i visit the frag yard ect, but TBH thats probably been stolen to order so doubt it'll end up in a frag yard
hope the poor sod gets it back .

[RS2000EXPRESS]

“STOLEN CARS”

Some clean low mileage Mk2’s the other week and now a Mk1 RS2000 has gone missing! - How can we prevent it happening?
Years ago when I was a member of the RS Owners Club there was a section at the back of their “Rallye News” magazine titled “STOLEN” (it may be still there) and amongst other cars I used to see cherished MK2 RS 2000’s having sadly gone missing. I like the rest of us, am gutted every time I hear of an RS going missing, as I had this happen to me back in 1987. To lose a cherished car, which has probably had tons of time and money spent on it, is a completely miserable, rotten experience. As the case with my previous car, immobilisers/alarms do not always save the car, and as we know cars during storage or restoration can go missing as well. As these cars are rarer than ever, there is a hell of a market for complete cars, good shells, good quality parts, and the chances of having one nicked seems to be as high as ever.

I often wonder when I am buying a used part, which unfortunate RS did this come off, maybe a spares car,
maybe one that was involved in an accident, or one that has rotted itself to death, but where else could it have come from, especially some of the tidy parts sometimes on offer? We never ask do we, we are just glad to get the part we wanted. But maybe we are unknowingly contributing to a thieves market, who knows.

Perhaps we need to make it harder for any low life to nick these cherished cars in the first place. As mentioned on another thread we are probably guilty of giving too much information away on the forum. We all enjoy talking about our cars, but we tell them what we are doing to the car, how much care is being taken into doing it, and basically giving the message of what a peach it would be to steal! This information is ok amongst trusted friends, but as we all know, we don’t know who is watching and weighing it all up.

From the recent thefts a car is not always stolen when it is in general use. Apparently when a car is being repaired or stored for some time, it can also be an easy target for theft. When we are looking around for someone to restore a car we are always keen to find out what quality job they have to offer, but we don’t ask an equally important question as to how good is their security towards protecting our car. Is the place alarmed? Maybe the car can be clamped as a precaution. Can the wheels be removed and stored safely away from the car? Can they be trusted not to broadcast to everyone that they have your car in for repair. It’s amazing how the word gets around about these cars being in for repair, and we are often innocently-guilty for doing it, the less people that know the better. If possible, try removing valuable parts off the car before it goes in for repair, to make it less desirable.

Maybe we have pictures posted on the forum of our cars outside our houses, which to the local “low-life” can be a give away as to where we live, and were the car is kept.

Has this got you thinking? Maybe other ideas can be contributed into the debate! Hopefully with a bit of thought and preparation, it will help more of us hang on to our cars!

RS2000EXPRESS
RS Mk2 Club 099

[bobmk1]

Gutted for the fella....Had a Mk1 escort stolen a few years back...most soul destroying thing i have experienced

[johnylock]

gutted

gutted for you pal ! you just dont mess with a mans automobile , they should serve twenty years breaking rocks then be hung by the neck till dead

[garthbtp]

Gutted for the owner. I agree ban the lurkers of the forum as some others have stated.

Cheers Garth

[Fi Fi Fiesta]

chop the bastads fingers off........

I agree! mind you i'd chop something else off if i caught the b*stards
SCUM!

[Martin]

As everyone else has said "Gutted for the owner".

Part of the problem is the desirability and rareness of the old RS's now, and thiefBay has opened up a Nationwide and even Europe wide marketplace to sell these parts. And with prices going through the roof for original mint parts then these thefts are only going to increase going forward.

I agree we need to monitor who is on the Forums and maybe consider checking the details of people who register before allowing them full access to the Members areas etc.

[morcheen]

i knew this car quite well,knowing 4 of the previous owners,but not seen or heard about any part of it at all. starting to hear more and more about stolen classics these days.