Stolen ford cosworth stories...
Discussion
philmh said:
As far as I remember a lot were taken while the owners were driving them through carjacking.
That surprises me as a mates XR4x4 was the first car I'd ever come across that the doors automatically locked when you started driving, then again if they're that easy to break in to I guess all it needs a scrote with a screwdriver at the traffic lights.As for ease of entry it wasn't just Ford, I remember coming back to a car park as a kid and my mother opening the boot of her Volvo 340 to load the shopping then wondering why there was a blanket in the boot...yep, her car was parked 2 spaces away and her key easily opened an identical one.
andymc said:
I remember up here in Newcastle Vic Graham's never got bothered (local hardman)well until he was shot
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!
Edited by sim16v on Tuesday 28th January 16:40
k-ink said:
Imagine the balls to just put a car on a low loader and drive off. They must disable the tracker first, surely?!
We had someone do that to a boat. RIB on a trailer with wheel clamp, ball hitch lock and the engine chained to the trailer. They reckon someone lifted over the fence of the boat yard with a truck mounted crane. It's amazing the balls some of these scrotes have.Chlamydia said:
k-ink said:
Loosely related, in that it was an old 80s Ford with crap security... My first ever car for a few months was a Fiesta. I managed to lock my car keys inside it like a muppet. My girlfriend had a crazy idea. She waved down the next passing Fiesta and asked to borrow their keys for a second. To my amazement she opened MY car using THEIR keys! How mental is that! My girlfriend was laughing and everyone else was open mouthed 
Worst security ever!!
A mate of mine had a Mk3 Capri and locked his keys in it. A friend of ours who was with us at the time had a Fiesta so we borrowed her key in desperation - it opened the Capri door no problem at all, although it wouldn't start the car when we tried it. Worst security ever!!I had a Cortina Mk3 that my brother unlocked and started with a small twig.
My other mate had a mk2 Golf at the time, and the Golf keys opened and started the Escort but not the other way round
Ford keys were terrible. My Grandad left my Aunties one night, go into & drove his Escort home, it's only when he tried to open his house door he realised he'd picked up my Uncles Chevette keys - Uncle couldn't get into the Chevette with Grandads Escort keys though.
My Dad picked me up from home in his lorry one day, returned to the yard & realised he left his jacket with car keys at home, his Cortina was duly started & driven home using my front door key.
Early Imprezas were not immune to theft, my first memories of one was of a newspaper picture of the car jammed between a light post & shop front in a Dartmoor village having been stolen and used in a Plymouth robbery. Can remember the article refering to the Impreza as a powerful saloon car - this was 94ish so were still very rare.
My Dad picked me up from home in his lorry one day, returned to the yard & realised he left his jacket with car keys at home, his Cortina was duly started & driven home using my front door key.
Early Imprezas were not immune to theft, my first memories of one was of a newspaper picture of the car jammed between a light post & shop front in a Dartmoor village having been stolen and used in a Plymouth robbery. Can remember the article refering to the Impreza as a powerful saloon car - this was 94ish so were still very rare.
birdcage said:
What's the equivalent these days to be stolen, Audi RS4/RS6?
BMW's at a guess -> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19562487My dad's boss had an Escort Cossie not long after they first came out. It was stolen from his drive after breaking into his house, nicking the keys to his daughters car to move it out of the way, and loading the Cossie onto a lorry. A few weeks later he saw it driving around High Wycombe with different plates (there was a small but distinctive ding in the boot lid). He called the police and they came and nicked them. If I recall correctly they traced the theft back to the bloke who was booking them in for service at the place he bought it from, he was giving out the addresses to a gang of thieves. This led them to find a load of Cossies in a warehouse over in Dunstable.
A guy I worked with had one of the first Sapphire Cosworths in the country, it was white. Previously he'd had a whale tail, and never had any bother. The new one was a privately owned car, not a company car like previously. So the registered keeper was always the bank he worked for, never him personally.
They came one night, rolled his landcruiser out of the way, cut open the garage door and drove off with the cossie. The landcruiser was fully alarmed, as was the garage, and the cossie. Nobody heard a thing.
They were caught a few days later with a list of about 50 Cosworths, apparently printed directly from an insurance company database. His was third on the list, from memory. They were down to about 35 or 40 when they were nabbed. I hope they lost their testicles in a Rottweiler and acid related incident.
They came one night, rolled his landcruiser out of the way, cut open the garage door and drove off with the cossie. The landcruiser was fully alarmed, as was the garage, and the cossie. Nobody heard a thing.
They were caught a few days later with a list of about 50 Cosworths, apparently printed directly from an insurance company database. His was third on the list, from memory. They were down to about 35 or 40 when they were nabbed. I hope they lost their testicles in a Rottweiler and acid related incident.
k-ink said:
If I owned one of these I'd have to rig up some kind of quick release ECU mounting somewhere convenient to quickly access. Maybe a removable steering wheel and other hidden kill switches as well.
Often the scumbags tested the security and then came back later, they'd be back with an ECU and steering wheel probably. Honest story - my dad borrowed his very close mates Ford Escort Cossie, when it was new, for a day, L reg bright red with whale tail. As a 13 year old boy, I was absolutely starstruck!
We went out for a hoon, I was amazed, it put my nerves on edge, etc.
Upon parking out the front of the local shops, my dad became nervous, pale faced, constant turning of the head toward the car. There's me in all my teenage ignorance asking my dad what he was so panicked about. He replied:
"Son this car is gone if we don't just hurry the f
k up in the shop"
To this day never a truer word spoken. We walked out the shop a minute later with a crowd of about 30 people gawping/eyeing up this Cossie.
It wasn't the fear of crashing the car that worried my dad, it was the fear of it getting nicked!
We went out for a hoon, I was amazed, it put my nerves on edge, etc.
Upon parking out the front of the local shops, my dad became nervous, pale faced, constant turning of the head toward the car. There's me in all my teenage ignorance asking my dad what he was so panicked about. He replied:
"Son this car is gone if we don't just hurry the f
k up in the shop"To this day never a truer word spoken. We walked out the shop a minute later with a crowd of about 30 people gawping/eyeing up this Cossie.
It wasn't the fear of crashing the car that worried my dad, it was the fear of it getting nicked!
There's a 3 door put into a building at 08:00 - very sad!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l3UukQMWsk
I was only 2 in '91, can't believe it was this bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l3UukQMWsk
I was only 2 in '91, can't believe it was this bad.
This one didn't actually get stolen - but to do so would have been tricky!
I spoke to an owner of an Escort Cosworth once, well I say owner I shall have to take his word for it I never saw the thing, who was overcome by fear that his car would be stolen. So much that it was kept covered, out of sight, in a locked garage. With an old van in front.
To make doubly sure that it would remain there he permanently immobilised it. By taking the engine out. He claimed that he did so as a security measure. I countered that surely the joy of owning a Cosworth was driving it. Apparently not, he liked going in the garage on his own and looking at the empty shell! So no-one is going to steal that Cosworth.
This is going to sound silly, but did anyone ever re-body a Sapphire Cosworth, possibly a damaged one, into a standard Sierra shell as an anti-theft measure? If it didn't look like a Cosworth then a thief wouldn't know...
I spoke to an owner of an Escort Cosworth once, well I say owner I shall have to take his word for it I never saw the thing, who was overcome by fear that his car would be stolen. So much that it was kept covered, out of sight, in a locked garage. With an old van in front.
To make doubly sure that it would remain there he permanently immobilised it. By taking the engine out. He claimed that he did so as a security measure. I countered that surely the joy of owning a Cosworth was driving it. Apparently not, he liked going in the garage on his own and looking at the empty shell! So no-one is going to steal that Cosworth.
This is going to sound silly, but did anyone ever re-body a Sapphire Cosworth, possibly a damaged one, into a standard Sierra shell as an anti-theft measure? If it didn't look like a Cosworth then a thief wouldn't know...
I've owned over 150 fords over the years and they are easy (OK laughably easy) to open but some of the storeys on here make me wonder, a twig, really? any TX ford key will open a Mk3 cortina yes but there is no way a twig would turn the lock to lift the rod and release the latch in the door lock, a tea spoon does it ok though, a lollypop stick will 9 times out of 10 snap with the force needed, i know i've tried many times.
The reason so many sierras got stolen is down to the V V poor steering lock, snap that and a 2inch bit of wire will see the car on it's way down the road in under 2 mins, jiggling the tibbie locks is doable once they wear but there are (and were) readyly available tools that will make a key on the spot in the lock, they were simply adapted Ford tools from the factory, used to gauge the locks code (to cut a replacement with no origional key to copy) and adapted to lock once the tool had "read" the lock and undo it, an "inside job" , probably similar to how all these new BMWs get nicked so easyly.
The factory alarms where a joke, no coded key just a switch on the door barrel and there are many ways around that both quick and messy and slow(er) and descreat.
As for cr@p like the early (80's) moss alarms
20 seconds would see them disabled with out opening any doors.
Strangely enough from a jiggling the lock point of veiw the early Mk4 escort/Mk3 transit chubb locks where the hardest to beat but very fragile and wore quickly and were soon replaced with the tibbie locks which had a longer service life at the cost of being easyer to jiggle/read, the earlyer cortina Mk3 escort TX keys were the toughest on wear but the downside is they lasted so well no-one ever serviced them meaning the lift tabs simply stuck in the unlocked position/return springs collapsed and could be opened with a spoon ect (although i'm still calling itchy beard on the twig).
P.S not a car theif just been a ford specialist breaker/mechanic for the last 30 years, in fact i rebuilt a set of Mk3 cortina locks and handles with new tabs and springs to a customers existing key last week, the week before i did the same for a Mk3 transit tibbie set.
The reason so many sierras got stolen is down to the V V poor steering lock, snap that and a 2inch bit of wire will see the car on it's way down the road in under 2 mins, jiggling the tibbie locks is doable once they wear but there are (and were) readyly available tools that will make a key on the spot in the lock, they were simply adapted Ford tools from the factory, used to gauge the locks code (to cut a replacement with no origional key to copy) and adapted to lock once the tool had "read" the lock and undo it, an "inside job" , probably similar to how all these new BMWs get nicked so easyly.
The factory alarms where a joke, no coded key just a switch on the door barrel and there are many ways around that both quick and messy and slow(er) and descreat.
As for cr@p like the early (80's) moss alarms
20 seconds would see them disabled with out opening any doors.Strangely enough from a jiggling the lock point of veiw the early Mk4 escort/Mk3 transit chubb locks where the hardest to beat but very fragile and wore quickly and were soon replaced with the tibbie locks which had a longer service life at the cost of being easyer to jiggle/read, the earlyer cortina Mk3 escort TX keys were the toughest on wear but the downside is they lasted so well no-one ever serviced them meaning the lift tabs simply stuck in the unlocked position/return springs collapsed and could be opened with a spoon ect (although i'm still calling itchy beard on the twig).
P.S not a car theif just been a ford specialist breaker/mechanic for the last 30 years, in fact i rebuilt a set of Mk3 cortina locks and handles with new tabs and springs to a customers existing key last week, the week before i did the same for a Mk3 transit tibbie set.
Edited by S0 What on Thursday 30th January 23:20
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