Stolen ford cosworth stories...
Discussion
rallycross said:
I had a mul-T lock on my Escort Cosworth - a wise investment on any Cossie (although not much good if they are going to lift it with a truck anyway).
I used to fit mul - T locks, not a bad deterrent, if fitted correctly...still use one now on my Evo. They're still available now from anywhere that supplies Garrison keys, I believe.sim16v said:
It was Viv Graham, and it did get stolen at least twice.
Funnily enough, the scum that nicked it is also dead, along with his scum brother, both from drug over doses a few years back.
As for stories, back in the 90's I owned 3 sapphires, 2 2wd, one 4wd, luckily non stolen, but I had plenty of other cars stolen, all Golf GTIs
A mate owned a white 2wd and sold it.
2 years later, he bought a black one that had had a respray.
Turned out it had the same repairs/bodges that he had done on his white one and turned out to be a ringer on the first car!
There was apparently more to that tale of the Cosworth, if the stories of the time are to be believed........the car was stolen, and the owner rang the local radio station, calmly pointing out who he was, and that if his car was returned to his home that night, with the money in it to repair any damage, no questions would be asked.Funnily enough, the scum that nicked it is also dead, along with his scum brother, both from drug over doses a few years back.
As for stories, back in the 90's I owned 3 sapphires, 2 2wd, one 4wd, luckily non stolen, but I had plenty of other cars stolen, all Golf GTIs
A mate owned a white 2wd and sold it.
2 years later, he bought a black one that had had a respray.
Turned out it had the same repairs/bodges that he had done on his white one and turned out to be a ringer on the first car!
Edited by sim16v on Tuesday 28th January 16:40
Folklore has it that he awoke the next morning to find 3 identical maroon Cossies parked up in front of the house............
Such was his reputation in the area at the time, that I have no reason to doubt the story, but it's possible it may have been embellished over the passing years.
I used to work for a Ford dealer in Newcastle in the early 90s, there was an endless stream of Sapphire Cosworths to be towed in or collected minus parts.......we used to have to take a plastic canteen chair with the legs removed to put over the drivers seat on the stolen cars ( if the seats were still in it, obviously ), because the real scumbags that stole the cars were also often on drugs, and used to leave needles in the seats ( on purpose! ). Lovely job to have at the time, it wasn't just the Cossies they did this in obviously.
The other one I know about was the K plate car that was kept in a locked garage near where I lived, and was bristling with security.........reportedly, the owner opened the undamaged garage door one morning to find the car still there, also completely undamaged, with all of the security devices removed, and a note saying " Don't take the piss "!
Interesting times, especially as I lived 3 streets away and owned a Power Engineering modified 1900 cc XR3i, which lived on the street.......it became the focus of attention one night, and I was subsequently bound over for 18 months for assault after turning a previously healthy scumbag into the occupier of a hospital bed for a couple of weeks. Life is full of regrets, fortunately his, not mine!
Edited by Heaveho on Wednesday 19th March 13:28
Heaveho said:
Interesting times, especially as I lived 3 streets away and owned a Power Engineering modified 1900 cc XR3i, which lived on the street.......it became the focus of attention one night, and I was subsequently bound over for 18 months for assault after turning a previously healthy scumbag into the occupier of a hospital bed for a couple of weeks. Life is full of regrets, fortunately his, not mine!
I used to keep my 3 door in various lockups and the scumbags found it a couple of times, they tried but never got it started. I used to take my landshark for a late night walk hoping to catch the scum at it, luckily for them the dog and baseball bat (and ball) was never used.
Polarbert said:
Does anyone know if those underage muppets in Scotland (Glasgow I think) are still nicking high end cars and joyriding them all while posting pictures on facebook?
Last I heard they'd burnt out an RS4.
It's Aberdeen, seems to have slowed down a bit thankfully!Last I heard they'd burnt out an RS4.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Growing up in the North East in the 1980s car crime was rife.
I think Geordies invented the ram raid.
It all came together perfectly when the Sierra Cosworth came along.
A Schoolfiend's Dad's business partner had one in Moonstone blue. It kept getting nicked and found. Once it was claimed the car was returned after a month or so missing with performance parts added to the engine.
It eventually got written off.
Edited by wildcat45 on Sunday 26th July 20:22
Zooks said:
petrolsniffer said:
Those or a metro
Wasn't there a trick in the early vauxhall nova's where you could start it simply by swiching two dash switches around?
Thought this was a myth but they did this on tonight's top gear. Great design feature lolWasn't there a trick in the early vauxhall nova's where you could start it simply by swiching two dash switches around?
Edited by Zooks on Sunday 2nd February 21:10
This thread has bought back so many memories of these great cars. Remember arriving at Club UK In Wolverhampton one night & there were 3 or 4 Escort Cosworth's parked up along the road. Me thinks some serious drug dealers were in the house that night!
Wish I got a Saphire Cosworth now, IIRC the insurance quote wasn't THAT bad
There were more Sapphires made, than there were three doors.
About 5x more if this is to be believed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Sierra_RS_Coswor...
About 5x more if this is to be believed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Sierra_RS_Coswor...
Well I'm far from proud of what I did in my youth in the early 90s but I was into joyriding and their was 2 occasions that me and 2 pals stole a granite grey 2wheel drive sapphire cosworth and the fastest car I ever drove a magenta 4x4 that had had serious work done under the bonnet. We were young and daft and must have caused poor owners no end of greef and im ashamed of it . What a machine a fettled cosie is though the 4x4 spun all four tyres and was lethal when turbo kicked in even though their getting long in the tooth a well maintained cosworth is great car
Mikekay17 said:
Well I'm far from proud of what I did in my youth in the early 90s but I was into joyriding and their was 2 occasions that me and 2 pals stole a granite grey 2wheel drive sapphire cosworth and the fastest car I ever drove a magenta 4x4 that had had serious work done under the bonnet. We were young and daft and must have caused poor owners no end of greef and im ashamed of it . What a machine a fettled cosie is though the 4x4 spun all four tyres and was lethal when turbo kicked in even though their getting long in the tooth a well maintained cosworth is great car
More time in school might have improved the the post somewhat.
Ray Luxury-Yacht said:
Some more Ford related stories for you...
It wasn't just Cossies which seemed attractive at that time - my Dad's Mk. 1 Escort also attracted unwanted attention in the 80's!
It was a 1972 'K' plate 1.1L as well - nothing fancy at all! But in 1983 it was left in the car park of the Birmingham Metropole Hotel, whilst we went away on our annual holiday. Came back to it to find it broken into, broken steering lock, with all the dash / steering column wiring hanging out. The potential theives must have been very close to nicking it - but never did - maybe they were disturbed and ran off?
Anyway the following year we left it at one of the car parks at Gatwick. This time, we got back to find an Escort-shaped space where the car was once parked
Amazingly, the BiB found it 2 weeks later, dumped in a housing estate in Dagenham! We can only surmise that it had tried to go back to it's spiritual home
anyway, once repaired again, Dad learned his lesson and we took the train to the airports for holidays after that!
Also, more recently in the 90's, a mate had a Transit Van for his building work. We soon sussed that it could easily be broken into, even when it was all locked up. How? Just by simply walking up to the back doors, and giving the door with the lock on it one good, hard punch, by the lock barrel. Just one punch would do 'something' to the lock, disabling it so the door could be opened!
This upsets me It wasn't just Cossies which seemed attractive at that time - my Dad's Mk. 1 Escort also attracted unwanted attention in the 80's!
It was a 1972 'K' plate 1.1L as well - nothing fancy at all! But in 1983 it was left in the car park of the Birmingham Metropole Hotel, whilst we went away on our annual holiday. Came back to it to find it broken into, broken steering lock, with all the dash / steering column wiring hanging out. The potential theives must have been very close to nicking it - but never did - maybe they were disturbed and ran off?
Anyway the following year we left it at one of the car parks at Gatwick. This time, we got back to find an Escort-shaped space where the car was once parked
Amazingly, the BiB found it 2 weeks later, dumped in a housing estate in Dagenham! We can only surmise that it had tried to go back to it's spiritual home
anyway, once repaired again, Dad learned his lesson and we took the train to the airports for holidays after that!Also, more recently in the 90's, a mate had a Transit Van for his building work. We soon sussed that it could easily be broken into, even when it was all locked up. How? Just by simply walking up to the back doors, and giving the door with the lock on it one good, hard punch, by the lock barrel. Just one punch would do 'something' to the lock, disabling it so the door could be opened!
You went to Birmingham on holiday?
But seriously, the security was a f
king joke. At school a mate had a very knackered XR2 so I used to take the spare for my mother's Escort and move it around the car park to wind him up. My father's Jaguar key would also start it. I never tried a spoon or anything but it probably would have worked.Gassing Station | Classic Cars and Yesterday's Heroes | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff