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Comment by jasonboyd | Hacker News Reader

I saw a car with the club the other day - this first I have seen in I can't even remember how long. The car was in rough shape. Real rough. I mused to my wife that perhaps the car was there to protect the club.

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Generally speaking, older vehicles are much easier to steal than newer vehicles. I have a friend with an 1980s Toyota truck who clubs it wherever he goes, not because it's a nice truck, not because he can't afford to lose it, but rather because it will definitely get stolen if he doesn't club it. Without a club, his truck can be stolen in under a minute by any layman using a little more than a flathead. Before he got the club, it was stolen multiple times -- usually turning up a week later, abandoned somewhere, and/or used as a shelter by a homeless person.

Yeah, there are some writeups on that phenomenon: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/honda-still-wins-when-i...

There are lists of the most stolen cars by year. Late 90s Hondas dominate.

I'd love to see a list controlled for popularity, or some sort of estimate of how many of each model is likely parked out on curbs at any given time.

Maybe the SUVs aren't being taken as often because they are in garages in the suburbs.

This is true. We used to call 80s Toyota truck keys the "any key" because any Toyota truck key will unlock and start almost any other Toyota truck from the same era.

It was similar for the 1970s Chevrolets (and I imagine lots of other brands). It was fairly easy to get a keyring with all the actual keys in use, because there were so few variations.

Adam Corolla tells a story of an old Nissan pickup he had when he was younger and poorer. It was so easy to steal he wired in a hidden switch to power the fuel pump, truck was stolen a couple of times and he would just walk a couple of blocks to where it was abandoned. I believe he also painted the stereo brown to as a deterrence to thieves looking for stereos to sell.

The fuel pump thing is very common for Jeep owners.

Probably someone who _really_ needs their car, because there's no way they can afford to replace it, and will possibly will lose their job/house without it.

It's expensive being poor...

Also: Poor people tend to live in rough neighborhoods and other people around them may have even less and would steal it in a heartbeat.

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