The sure-fire way to theft-proof your car — but you’re not going to like it

SHUTTERSTOCK PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

If you own a pink car, you'd never have to fear it would be stolen. Then again, you'd have to be seen in it.

Cathal Kelly

STAFF REPORTER

Good news, bad news here. There is a way to practically guarantee that your car will not be stolen. It also guarantees that you won’t want to be seen in your car.

A new Dutch study reveals that colour is increasingly important to car thieves. And car thieves prefer popular, sober colours like black, silver and blue. What don’t they like – pink. Nobody steals pink cars.

They’re also averse to anything on the subtler side of hot. Aside from pink, the least stolen colours are red, yellow and purple.

The vast majority of cars sold worldwide are painted out of the conservative palate. In order, the top five colours – silver, black, white, grey and blue – account for 86 per cent of cars sold.

According to the study by Ben Vollaard, an economist of crime at the University of Tilburg, they also account for the vast majority of cars stolen.

That’s not surprising. But what is, is Vollaard’s assertion that colour is growing in importance as a factor in the likelihood that you car will be stolen. Vollaard asserts that colour as a factor in theft has tripled over the last 15 years.

“That’s what we see in the Netherlands, and the same thing is going on in Canada,” Vollaard said Thursday. “The major factor is that car theft has become the work of professionals.”

Since the introduction of anti-theft devices such as the immobilizer, opportunistic car theft by hot-wirers and joy riders has all but disappeared.

That’s left the field open to organized gangs who will break into homes in search of keys or tow-away targets. Their only criterion in theft, according to Vollaard’s research, is popularity.

And nobody in the Middle East, Africa or Asia – the end destination for most cars stolen by rings in North America and Europe – buys a hot-pink car.

While doing his study, Vollaard surprisingly found 109 pink cars in Holland. Unsurprisingly, no respectable thief wanted them.

“Obviously, yellow cars are less often stolen, but that’s not because there are fewer yellow cars around,” said Vollaard. “The risk of getting of getting a yellow car stolen is 40 per cent less.”

Vollaard practises what he preaches – he drives a yellow Peugeot.

Of course, there is the downside noted up top. What good is a theft-proof car if you have to drive around looking like a strutting make-up salesman or a demented Bette Midler fan?

Would you, Prof. Vollaard, drive a pink car?

(Pause for thought)

“There are many benefits to driving a pink car,” Vollaard said carefully.

“But there are costs as well . . . so . . . um . . . yeah . . . probably not.”

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