- Ford’s Fiesta – Britain’s most-owned car – was the most stolen model of last year
- Range Rovers saw a decline in thefts as the brand invested £10m in security
- Of the top 10 most stolen, a German luxury saloon saw the biggest jump of 30%
A car was stolen in Britain every 8 minutes 12 seconds on average last year as motor theft rose by almost 5 per cent.
The latest reported increase in vehicle crime comes amid the recent spike in keyless car thefts, which is now the most common tactic used by organised criminals to steal the latest motors of all values.
A total of 64,087 cars were reported stolen to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in 2023, up from 61,106 the year previous (an increase of 4.9 per cent), exclusive data shared with MailOnline and This is Money shows.
The figures detail which 10 models were most commonly pinched and reveal a big decline in Range Rover thefts – news that has been welcomed by parent company Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) when we broke it to them, and will undoubtedly be celebrated by owners of its vehicles.
However, keepers of one particular German executive saloon might need to keep an eye on their cars, with DVLA data revealing a 30 per cent spike in thefts.
The Ford Fiesta – Britain’s most owned car – was reported stolen most frequently last year, according to DVLA records obtained by car leasing comparison site LeaseLoco.
Given there is around an estimated 1.5million on the road today, it comes as no shock to see the Fiesta appear at the top the list, with 5,976 reported as having been taken without the consent of owners last year.
This was three fewer thefts than in 2022, when 5,979 were unlawfully taken, the figures reveal following a freedom of information request to the government agency.
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On average, 16 Fiestas were stolen every day last year – or one every 88 minutes.
And there are major concerns that Fiestas could be increasingly targeted in 2024 and the years after following Ford’s recent decision to cease production of the incredibly popular small car.
The final Fiesta came off the Cologne assembly line last summer, which triggered warnings from vehicle crime experts that it could instantly become more appealing to criminals to steal and break down into spares now that Ford is no longer making parts for the nation’s most popular model.
‘Criminals have been quick to jump on this opportunity, lucratively selling on stolen Ford Fiesta parts on the black market,’ Clive Wain, a former detective chief superintendent and now head of police liaison at Tracker, told This is Money previously.
John Wilmot, chief executive of LeaseLoco, which issued the FOI for vehicle theft data to the DVLA, said: ‘Logically, with fewer new Fiestas on the roads, we might have expected to see thefts fall last year.
‘However, Ford’s decision to discontinue the popular small hatchback could well have sparked an increase in demand for second-hand parts, making them a hot target for thieves.’
A study by Go.Compare last year found that almost half (48 per cent) of all UK police forces listed the Fiesta as the car most commonly reported stolen in their areas in 2022 – up from less than a third (30 per cent) in 2019.
The Ford Focus (2,120 thefts, down 3.0 per cent) and VW Golf (2,038, up 0.1 per cent) – two other examples of widely-owned models in Britain – completed the podium of most-nicked cars.
Decline in Range Rover thefts
While the Fiesta, Focus and Golf are all predicable sights at the top of the vehicle theft charts – attributing to the high number of examples on the road today – the same can’t be said about Range Rovers.
The premium SUVs are beloved by the wealthy, footballers and – it seems – vehicle thieves.
For the last few years, they have been listed among the most stolen motors.
This has been linked to a combination of their desirability with criminals – especially as many are stolen to order and then loaded into containers to be exported to Africa and other overseas regions where demand is high – and a suggested ease of infiltrating security systems.
However, the number of all Range Rover variants (including Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Velar and Evoque) stolen in 2023 declined by almost 20 per cent compared to 2022, the data shows.
It suggests recent efforts and investments by JLR to bolster the anti-theft systems in its cars is having an impact.
The most commonly stolen Range Rover last year was the Range Rover Sport, with 1,631 pinched in 2023, down from 2,283 in 2022 – a decline of 28.6 per cent.
This volume of thefts places it fifth in the overall rankings. In 2022, it was second only to the Fiesta.
Behind the Sport was the Evoque, with a 2.8 per cent year-on-year fall in cars taken from their rightful owners, amounting to 1,489 thefts in 2023.
The standard Range Rover and Range Rover Velar didn’t make it into the the top 10 list, with 771 and 560 thefts. However, it is worth noting that these were yearly declines of 27.2 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.
JLR says figures from the Police National Computer Data also show a similar downward trend of thefts of Range Rover vehicles, with a 26 per cent reduction between November 2022 and the same month last year.
However, the Land Rover Discovery Sport did squeeze into the top 10 order of stolen motors in 2023 with a 15.2 per cent year-on-year increase in thefts that saw 954 go missing.
It comes just months after JLR confirmed it is spending £10million retrofitting some of its older cars to upgrade them to the latest – hi-tech – security systems to block the recent spate of breaches of driverless system.
Since January 2022, only 0.07 per cent of new Range Rover and Range Rover Sports on the road with the latest security setup have been stolen, while only 0.3 per cent of new Defenders had been affected since 2020, JLR told us.
Its models dating back to 2018 are eligible for the security upgrade free of charge, with some 74,500 customers already taking advantage of the offer, a spokesperson explained.
The brand also exclusively revealed to This is Money it is providing ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds’ in funding to police forces to help them to tackle the flow of stolen vehicles swiftly being exported out of the country.
The scale of Range Rover thefts has become such an issue in recent years that some owners, particularly those in London, have faced excessive increases in their motor insurance premiums.
In fact, some insurers have refused to cover the cars in the capital over concerns about the high risk of crime.
As such, JLR was forced in October to launch its own insurance cover for customers, which provided an ‘average monthly premium of less than £200’.
Some 8,000 Range Rover owners are currently using this solution, though there are cases where drivers have been rejected by the company’s own insurance package.
Owners will now be hoping the reported decline in thefts of these motors will have an impact on their insurance premiums.
Patrick McGillycuddy, JLR UK managing director, told us: ‘The rapid decline in Range Rover thefts in the last year, demonstrates the strength of our latest vehicle security measures.
‘These significant reductions are a result of engineering our new vehicles to be robust against all known theft methods through the latest anti-theft technology, endorsed by third party experts like Thatcham.
‘In fact, our latest data shows that only ten out of 12,200 of the latest model of Range Rovers have been stolen since January 2022.
‘We have also invested £10million to update more than 75,000 older client vehicles with the latest security features and we will continue to roll out the latest updates to tens of thousands more nationwide.
‘JLR is also funding hundreds of thousands of pounds on additional policing to tackle the root causes – by stopping the flow of stolen cars in and out the country, to benefit all UK drivers.’
Big spike in Mercedes C-Class thefts
The model in the top 10 that saw the biggest annual jump in thefts was the Mercedes-Benz C-Class.
The 1,786 cars reported stolen to the DVLA in 2023 was 29.6 per cent higher than the year previous (1,378) and is by far the most significant increase among the league table of models most commonly pinched.
‘C-Class owners need to continue to be extra vigilant to avoid becoming a victim of crime,’ LeaseLoco’s Wilmot warned.
This is Money contacted Mercedes-Benz UK regarding the apparent rise in C-Class thefts. A spokesperson for the German car giant said: ‘We’re not able to comment without more information on the age and specification of the cars included in the DVLA data.’
The remaining car models making up the top 10 most stolen of 2023 include the BMW 3 Series (1,466, down 0.8 per cent), Vauxhall Corsa (1,110, down 13.3 per cent) and Vauxhall Astra (1,085, down 12.4 per cent).
The DVLA records also revealed that 43 Ferraris were reported stolen by owners to the DVLA last year, as were 51 Porsche 911s.
Some 14 Lamborghinis were confirmed pinched and 29 Tesla owners had their electric cars taken by criminals.
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Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
