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Help share this around for any sightings. My mates E-Type was stolen last night from London NW8 St Johns Wood area. If anyone has any sightings of this car please let me know and Met Police. (where else is a good place to share this info?) REG 423 UYP white E-type hatchback. Distinguishing features Left hand drive. Missing trim bits from inside as he was refurbishing the head cloth etc. Its also very loud you might hear it coming before you see it. Was last seen driven away by car thief around 1am yesterday from St Johns Wood, police are investigating, but no sightings. Owner is distraught as this car was very special to him. It had very little fuel in and has a locking fuel cap so could not have been driven very far as we still have the keys.
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Apr 26, 2016 10:49:08 GMT
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Just shared this with a E type restorers in the New Forest area. They will keep an eye out for you.
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'88 Cadillac Brougham hearse (white) '91 Carlton GSi 24v '72 Dodge dual cab pick up '99 Mercedes S55 AMG
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soupacharged
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 52
Club RR Member Number: 109
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Apr 26, 2016 10:57:20 GMT
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Scumbags.
Fingers crossed it's found undamaged
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Apr 26, 2016 17:26:54 GMT
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Just shared this with a E type restorers in the New Forest area. They will keep an eye out for you. thanks
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pcj
Part of things
Posts: 203
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Sorry to see yet another pride and joy get lifted by lowlifes......Beautiful car...like all the Retro Riders on here I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you get her back, hopefully with little or no damage.
Highly unlikely that was an opportunistic joyrider as the low fuel situation would have left it abandoned fairly quickly.
Since it's a very distinctive car, even in that area, I reckon you'll be very lucky indeed if it was driven any distance and shows up on CCTV road cams.
Possibly it went into a shed/lockup/yard etc nearby but more likely it went but a few hundred yards and then went onto a covered trailer/into the covered rear of a lorry/transporter or simply became a tarpaulin covered load on a lorry or trailer.
Check with neighbours/nearby businesses etc around you (even try asking your local paper to put a "help" request in their reader's letters page) to see if any of their cams picked up the transfer from road to cover.
Since the vehicle has now been lifted can you tell us what defences, if any, it had, so the guys and gals on here can learn a little more to try and keep ahead of these scumbags?
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Rob M
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,915
Club RR Member Number: 41
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Apr 27, 2016 12:10:34 GMT
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Imagine the scenario of having, say £30,000 lifted from a cash machine. The Police would be all ovewr it like a tramp on a sandwich. That cars value must make it a major theft. You would expect the Police to be combing CCTV ( we are the worlds most watched society outside of North Korea ) in a mile circumference of the location of the theft. ANY vehicle/trailer out at that time of night, large enough to put the car into would be under scrutiny. This car hasnt vanished into thin air, there will be, somewhere, somesort of evidence. Maybe the insurers, who stand to lose a wodge of money in a pay out, could be asked to lean on the Police. I dare say the car is probably half way across the atlantic by now.
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pcj
Part of things
Posts: 203
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Apr 27, 2016 12:49:09 GMT
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Couldn't agree more Zeb.
Had it been a cash machine I reckon you'd be dead right. It would have been swamped in attention. Mind you that would be stealing from a bank and banks have clout.
Sadly for we minions any/all classic car theft seem to be considered as just another old car theft, way down the pecking order (if on it at all) behind important stuff like nailing motorists for minor transgressions, sending high profile (and low result but very high cost) blue light flashing convoys into seaside towns for a few headlines in the local rag etc etc.
Hence I suggested the owner just might get some kind of result by trying a bit of personal legwork, it certainly can't make things any worse.
Let's hope, as you mentioned, that the insurance company puts on some pressure. Though there again insurers lay off their potential liabilities across a wide spread of sub-insurers so it may be no real significant loss to them to just pay up and increase everyone's premium by a few bob next renewal.
Seems to be like a lot of things in life that we peasants are between a rock and a hard place. We pay for insurance yet all too often the insurer takes the easy route to settlement and nails us next time with a bigger fee. Similarly the people in blue: we pay a police precept out of our local taxes yet they have a personal list of crimes that they essentially ignore or will get round to next time hell freezes over.
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Nath
Part of things
Looking for a Retro
Posts: 300
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Apr 28, 2016 11:37:44 GMT
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It is a shame that a car of this status has been pinched. However whether restoring/storing it I woudl've have put a tracker on it. Obviously i do hope it's found with minimal damage.
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pcj
Part of things
Posts: 203
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Apr 28, 2016 15:36:33 GMT
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It is a shame that a car of this status has been pinched. However whether restoring/storing it I woudl've have put a tracker on it. Obviously i do hope it's found with minimal damage. Agree there "oldclassics". I did ask that the owner let us know what defences, if any, had to be overcome to lift this prize, so we could all better understand our enemy, but so far nothing forthcoming.
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Apr 28, 2016 18:00:49 GMT
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Maybe the owners don't want to tell the thieves there is a tracker etc fitted once it's removed from it's Faraday cage
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pcj
Part of things
Posts: 203
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If these lowlifes were sharp enough to be applying a 100% effective Faraday, including while it was in transit, they ain't going to fall for unloading it in the open. They'll probably be all over it looking for just such a device. It certainly didn't seem to help during the actual lift, even though the vehicle was seen being driven away.
BTW we live in an historic building and both its exterior cladding and roof are corrugated iron and we still get mobile phone (in an area known for poorish reception), radio and TV signals inside it. Yes it has windows and it wasn't built as a Faraday cage, but an awful lot of it is essentially a large tin can. An effective Faraday cage needs very careful setting up.
The very least the owner could do would be to assure us that it wasn't just another classic with no defences to which they just needed a key. He doesn't need to go into detail on anything that might bring it back such as a tracker. If they overcame such things as an alarm, an immobiliser or even something as basic as a Krooklok/Disclok it might help others look to their basic defences, or at least be aware that they aren't 100% scumbag proof.
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Trackers can be blocked by a £5 device being plugged into the cars fag lighter, no need for a Faraday cage.
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pcj
Part of things
Posts: 203
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Right, now someone has also stated the blatantly well known can we see if we can get back to trying to gain anything from the OP's tragedy in losing their prized vehicle?
Let's try this again: Once a vehicle is stolen then the thieves have defeated whatever defences were deployed so what purpose is served by not letting the rest of us know just what failed to keep the scumbags at bay? Quite likely we are just as vulnerable whilst we sit here fat, dumb and happily confident in whatever security we've applied?
The thieves aren't working in the dark on this (including those who operate in the wee small hours), but we classic car owners are!
I'll give you an example of a bit of useful "new" information which I gleaned recently on here: many years ago when thievery took a simpler form I had one of the original Krookloks. Easy to use, very visible and quite a useful device in the days when car door keys were easy to get and many cars could be opened with the same key. Eventually the Krooklok type devices fell victim to improved thievery i.e. to those scumbags prepared to bring along a good hacksaw or bolt cutter as the hollow shaft was the weak point.
It was quite sometime before most Krooklok owners became aware of the vulnerability (pre internet days) so quite a few lost vehicles that they thought were secured. Eventually Krooklok type devices moved their game up a notch or two and the StopLok (the wide and heavy steel blade device that locks over your steering wheel and whose blade is long enough to foul the seat and your legs so you can't drive with it in place) and the DiscLok (which is similar but covers the whole steering wheel) were the next "secure" devices for a while.
The DiscLok in particular claiming to be pretty hard to beat. Eventually of course thieves found ways of beating them. The vulnerability with the StopLok being that not all the steering wheel was covered so it could be cut through and the device removed (but it was way cheaper than the full DiscLok).
Such vulnerability was even highlighted in tests conducted by Which and other organisations. Around about this time car companies began to take security a lot more seriously and fitted better locks, alarms and immobilisers and the use of these "Krooklok" type gadgets pretty much dropped away.
Now I still have a StopLok (no I didn't buy it, it came with a car many years ago). Looking at it the blade is very impressive, a good chunk of steel bar encased in plastic but I've always thought the actual split tube that goes round the steering wheel rim and the actual lock itself definitely much more vulnerable than the rest of it. I do use it (not as security, I deploy much better defence than that) but as a visible deterrent to opportunist joyriders when the car is parked in public places.
However I'm now thinking that I may just be inviting vandalism after reading a previous post on here where an Escort was stolen and they cut through the steering wheel to remove the locking device (sounded v much like a StopLok). Maybe instead of warning off would-be joyriders I'm inadvertently sending out a message that the only defence the car has is the StopLok!
The Escort was recovered, good news for the owner, and I learned something thanks to their honesty in letting us know what failed to protect the car.
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?? Eh ?
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He's trying to find out what doesn't work.
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pcj
Part of things
Posts: 203
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?? Eh ? To put it simply: I thought that since I still had the device I might as well use it as a visible deterrent (the more defence the better). However the unlucky Escort guy's experience reminded me of its deficiency and obviously, despite the use of a StopLok itself being pretty rare, the scumbag that lifted the Escort had preplanned to cut through the steering wheel. So my "visible deterrent" may be no such thing. If I get hit by a would-be joyrider who (wrongly) figures the StopLok is my only defence then they will have vandalised my steering wheel before finding the other kit prevents them driving off. What seemed like a good idea to use up a piece of redundant kit may not be such a good idea after all. Had the Escort guy kept stum about how his car was taken I wouldn't be rethinking the use of the StopLok. So if other people tell us what got defeated on their cars maybe we can all learn something and be a bit more realistic in our security "hopes".
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Last Edit: May 1, 2016 19:44:51 GMT by pcj: typo
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joda
Part of things
Posts: 672
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Best bit of security is a Motorcycle type security chain around the axle and down to a ground anchor
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skoze
Part of things
Posts: 382
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Yep... If it's at home, concrete a ground anchor in and chain the curse word down.
I still wouldn't think twice about using a stoplok/ disklok as a visible deterrent for opportunists. Anything that'll make them think twice at a show/ meet/ car park or whatever can't be a bad thing. If someone's truly decided to have your car away, replacing a steering wheel wheel as a trade-off to inconvenience them sufficiently to stop an all out theft is a small price to pay imo, especially if it's then backed up with yet more obstacles.
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Disclocks (rather than a stop lock unless that's the same thing with a different name) cover the entire wheel, without using a grinder I can't think how to get one off.
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