Car thieves covet 20-year-old Hondas more than any other vehicle in the country.
According to the most recent data compiled by the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), the 1997 Accord and 1998 Civic were the most stolen cars nationwide in 2016.
Cheap, plentiful, and devoid of modern anti-theft technology like coded ignition keys that send encrypted signals at every engine start, these old Hondas are magnets for thieves looking for reliable wheels or an easy platform to strip parts, the NICB says. Thieves nabbed at least 757,850 cars in 2016, a seven-percent increase from 2015.
There were nearly 100,000 Accord and Civic models stolen across all model years in 2016, followed by the Ford F-series pickup (32,721), Chevrolet Silverado (31,238), and the Toyota Camry (16,732).
Thieves latched onto more than 12,000 vehicles each of the Nissan Altima and Dodge Ram, while the Toyota Corolla (11,989), Chevrolet Impala (9,749), and Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee SUVs (9,245) ranked in the top 10. Despite the relative ease of stealing older cars, the most stolen Camry, Altima, and Corolla models were from 2015 and 2016. Among only new cars, those three cars outranked all others, with thefts between 982 and 1,113 cars.
Owners of then-new 2016 Dodge Charger, Ford Fusion, Hyundai Sonata, GMC Sierra, Hyundai Elantra, Ford F-series, and Ford Transit models reported between 669 and 945 thefts per model.