According to You: How to protect your classic from being stolen
Your answers to our question about ways to prevent the theft of classic vehicles went above and beyond; they not only taught others interesting tricks but kept us all grounded. That’s because car thieves are likely to never tire, and if at first they don’t succeed, they shall try again. However, the harder you make it, the less likely they are to remain motivated. Or, as Hagerty Community member @David said:
You know, despite our best efforts, if some nefarious person(s) want what you have, they’re probably going to figure out how to get it. Kill switches and other such devices are fine, but the determined thief will just roll up with a tow truck and drive off if they have zeroed in on your car.
I mainly want to deter the opportunistic thieves out there. So, I keep my cars locked when not in use and in public and I make sure my insurance is active and the value up-to-date.
How do we lower the chances of a vehicular tragedy? Let’s learn more from your answers.
Losing that spark
@Jeepcj5: On one of my vehicles I have a hidden switch that kills the spark. This kill switch allows the starter to still turn, it just won’t fire up. Hopefully [thieves] get discouraged quick enough when it just sits there and spins over, or they draw enough attention to walk away before they troubleshoot the wiring.
@brian: I put a two-prong turn-signal flasher in line with [the] ignition-circuit motor. It starts, it will rev up, but when put in drive [it] won’t pull itself!
@vette guy: How about running a wire from the hot side of the coil to a switch, then to a loud horn? There are many ways to alert you; just use your imagination!
@Walter: A friend of mine had a 1968 Dodge Super Bee. He wired the high beam switch (which was on the floor) as the ignition cutoff switch and mounted a switch under the dash to activate the high beams.
I myself had a 1969 Roadrunner that someone tried to steal three times. First time they pushed in the small vent window, then cranked down the window and opened the door. They removed the bezel around the ignition switch but tried to remove the switch by pulling it forward, when all they had to do was push it and it would have fallen out the back. I then installed an alarm, so the second time the alarm went off and they were gone. The third time they knew there was an alarm, so they pushed in the vent window again, rolled down the window, and climbed through. What they didn’t know is that there were two ignition-cutoff switches under the dash. Unsuccessful again.
@Malcolm: Battery disconnects work well.
Own a “difficult” vehicle
@Jeff: I use the standard features my 1954 Austin-Healey came with as standard features: no exterior door handles, a battery disconnect switch, a starter button, and a manual transmission.
@Michael: 1938 Chevrolet—first level is a manual transmission and a floor-mounted starter—would probably slow down some of the bad guys. A battery disconnect (with the battery under the floorboard) may slow down the next level [of thief].
@Headturner: My van has the best deterrent straight from the factory: a three-on-the-tree will keep them occupied. My ’57 Chevy is a four-speed but I leave the key in it while it is in the garage. If they steal it, I’d rather not have them cut up a 65-year-old harness to hot-wire it.
A bypass switch is like “fuels” gold?
@Mike: I have a kill switch hidden in plain sight: An unused blower switch on the dashboard, rewired to the electric fuel-pump hot line.
@Mike, but not the same one as above: I’ve pulled the fuel pump fuse before. I’ve even cable-locked around a coil spring before. Anything to make a thief have to spend more time.
Steering-wheel locks
@Jeff: Nothing is more satisfying than a cross-country trip in a classic car. Yes, I use a steering wheel club and always turn the wheels all the way to one side so it can’t be towed. I guess the best suggestion is to stay in a nice hotel in a nice suburb and park under a street lamp as close to the front door of the hotel as possible. If there is a security camera on the building I park under that as well. But I still worry about the car. I’m looking forward to reading other’s replies.
@Jim: I think thieves will usually get a car if they want it bad enough, but the idea is to make it inconvenient for them. That’s the reason I use steering wheel clubs, especially when an overnight parking place looks iffy. They’re cheap and only take seconds to put on the wheel.
@Bernd: I use a club since the airbag in the steering wheel of my daily driver was stolen twice. (Now it’s a quite an old model, thieves get them at the scrap yard.)
@Blu: A club can be defeated with big bolt cutters: [You] cut the steering wheel beside the club and take it off. A hidden battery disconnect works well.
Tracking devices
@greg: I have a Viper alarm on one, and Carlock on my other two. All have instant phone app notifications (including my ’31 Model A). I sleep well at night, even if staying in a hotel on the road; and no, I have no stake in either company.
@Arrow: Just put mine away for Christmas, but I’m going to put an Apple AirTag in my classic when it’s out of the garage.
Balloons
@DUB6: We once went on a road trip with friends. Two classics in a motel parking lot in unknown (for crime) areas was a bit scary. We bought two balloons that had blinking mini-lights inside them (it was nearing Halloween). Deflated the balloons and placed the tiny, blinking lights down in the speedometer wells. In the dark, it looked like both cars had activated security systems. A thorough thief shoulda/coulda/woulda figured it out, but at least we all slept easier!
Bunka’s Bunker?
@Bunka: I keep my Porsche 356 in the garage. It is a one-car garage. The car outside in the driveway abutting the street is my daily driver. A thief first has to get it out of the way. It is always locked. Then there is my wife’s car which also needs to be removed; it is also locked. Then there is the garage door: No handle on the outside so you need to know the code in order to open it. Then the trash cans and soon-to-be snowblower have to be removed from in front of the 356, which is in the back.
All of the work and time involved to steal the car is bound to draw someone’s attention. I feel very confident that the car is secure. On the flip side, I have to plan an extra 30 minutes in advance when I want to go to a car show or rally. As far as security is concerned when the car is out, I have the factory-installed shift lock and the factory-installed interior gas shut off. The various positions of the gas shut off are all written in German so that makes it a time-consuming, trial-and-error thing.
Do it all?
@DrivingHy: Everything said here is true. There’s no defense for a determined thief. Given enough time any car can be stolen. That said, I do agree many devices and clubs are better than none and will slow [thieves] down or divert them elsewhere, but it’s best to be proactive. I’ll do the club just for something obvious but also remove something essential that prevents a thief from getting away quickly.
I’ve known people who’ve removed all the lug nuts from one wheel. It’s rarely noticed and can stop a thief fairly quick when a wheel comes off. I suppose it’s better to have a damaged and abandoned car than one that’s stolen.
In my case, I’ll pull the distributor cap and wires. Park in an “ender” preferably next to a fixed barrier like a wall and turn the wheels in a direction that makes backing out straight impossible. Naturally I always set the handbrake so if they try to tow the car it’s way harder to go unnoticed and pull it out straight and onto a flatbed.
Naturally an AirTag (or similar) couldn’t hurt. And take lots of car pics after parking it—just in case the police need to ID it …
If I go [a] long distance and am not comfortable with the area, I’ll sleep in my car before leaving it out of sight!
Keep it a secret
@DUB6: Well frankly, I’m not inclined to publicize any details, but suffice [it] to say that through various electronic and mechanical means, I feel pretty—well, fairly—confident. I will say that one should not rely on one tactic only, but combine two or more so you have backup. And then, tell/show no one—NO ONE—what your secrets are. If you are not a “wrencher” or DIYer, you may indeed have to pay someone to install some sort of system(s), so please be sure you know your installer well.
@TooFast4Me: You make a very good point which a lot of people miss. Know your installer! About 30 years ago there was a place that installed car stereos, alarms, and auto-start systems. They would install and collected everyone’s info, wait awhile, then start stealing back—car stereos, at first. Then entire cars, since they knew the alarm-system codes by having a spare remote made. The business did not do the thefts themselves but sold the info to others. It was only when some very high-value vehicles went missing that they caught the culprits and they admitted they bought the info from the business. That business in particular had not only a great reputation but [had] in business for over 35 years. Needless to say, the business is gone.
If you can’t install it yourself then ask other owners of high-value vehicles to recommend someone. GPS/cell trackers work well but [they are] ongoing expenses. But again, [as] a lot of good points stated in these replies: keep your insurance up to date, know your environment, and a gut feeling is usually right!
@don: Yup, the club is great, but then add a hidden kill switch (that stops most people) and I keep the vehicle in a locked garage with my daily driver in front of it. My “collector” cars are not extremely high value so I think I don’t need much else, so just keep your secrets, secret.
@Sajeev Mehta: I keep a few secrets for this reason too, because some of my vehicles have hidden theft deterrents and automotive journalists are easily googleable by anyone. I love my silly Fords too much to have it any other way. (Even if they are mostly value-less to most any thief.)
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I figure the fact that mine has a manual transmission eliminates 95% of potential thieves.
When i occasionally park my Sunbeam Alpine in an iffy neighborhood, I swap the coil wire with one of the spark plug wires.
My Sunbeam was one of the last cars to be equipped with an old-fashioned hand crank – for emergencies. When I would park my Ford Ranger at a notorious local park and ride lot, I discovered that the hand crank, positioned thru through the steering wheel, looked a lot like The Club (Or at least A club) through the tinted windows. Never had a problem. Then I got lazy and didn’t use the crank. Within a week, it was stolen.
Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes fame owned a Sunbeam Tiger for much of his life. After he died, his daughter revealed that for many years Andy used to drive the Tiger to work every day and park it on the street in downtown NYC. Not only that, he always left the key in the ignition! No one ever touched it.
Don’t get overconfident about how safe your car is inside the garage – six seconds with a coat hanger and a thief is in.
Google “how thieves break into garages”
I keep my vw dune buggy, Canam Spyder, show trailer, and future classic ‘14 Fj cruiser all in my garage with double locks. 2024 dailey drivers are in driveway with dashcams aimed at drivers seat, remotely monitored on our phones. The cams are located under rear view mirrors and hard to see (very small as well). We have three outside cameras with phone monitoring and a Ring Doorbell. I think the best deterrent is a nice neighborhood with great neighbors who are always watching for problems and suspicious people. One last deterrent is I have a small motorcycle lift which requires my compressor to be turned on to lift it slightly to then let it down to drive the Canam off the lift. I definitely would hear the compressor and the garage door openers. The Dailey drivers also block access to the garage. The garaged vehicles only go to car shows and cruise ins, so I’m always with them. Great reading all these security options. One of your best!
I have a faulty Relay in my 911SC. So, it normally has 5 prongs but wouldn’t start-so we clipped one of the five prongs so now the fuel pump will again deliver fuel. When I want to secure the car, I take the faulty prong with me or I replace it with a working five prong relay-hence–no fuel. It does turn over. That said, I’m told there are few real car thieves out there anymore–they all just tow.
A friend of mine did a cutoff switch that I thought was unique. He converted his cigarette lighter to a cutoff switch. He attached a switch to the back of the lighter and then put a short piece of wooden dowel inside the lighter. When the lighter plugged in, it pushed the dowel back and disconnected the switch. A thief would never find it.
I’ve heard of people using the wheel lock things that parking enforcement uses on cars with unpaid tickets
James Bond method has always intrigued me…
https://youtu.be/n1Ug4I89c98
Credit: For Your Eyes Only
Of course at home it’ll be in a garage, but if not always have it blocked in by another car and have a boot on. And as live GPS trackers are cheap to buy, have one hidden within the car- but then advertise this fact with easily bought stickers on the windows.
I don’t take my classic and leave it unattended at grocery stores, etc. Even if no one is trying to steal it it make attract unwanted attention you can do nothing about while you are gone. That is what the daily driver is for.
In 1993, I had an aftermarket car start installed on my ‘93 S-10 Blazer. The cool thing was, if you were starting it manually, you had to hit the door unlock button. Otherwise the starter was dead. You only had 30 seconds to get it started before it went into “dead starter” mode.
At home I run mine up on a four post hoist and disable the power to the hydraulics. Parking something else under it makes it even more difficult. Anywhere else, lock it, set alarm, take keys, hope for the best.
I put a keyed battery disconnect near the battery in my MG. The part that sticks out is unobtrusive, and if I take the key it can’t be enabled. As it cuts the ground 100% from the battery to the car, it also kills any phantom power bleeds so the battery also stays charged when stored. Best of all, it would take jacking up the car to really reconnect the battery ground sufficient to run the starter, so it’s pretty effective.
The battery disconnects are readily available almost any auto place plus online. About $30 CDN so cheap but effective insurance. The only humorous part to me is the one I have is branded “NASCAR”. On an MG.
Robert Blake said there were two ways to seal the car. Drive it away or tow it away the only way to stop a tow away is a boot or a four wheel lock device. The car can still be drug onto a trailer or a flatbed. my first collector car is my 69 GTO convertible when I first bought it in the mid 90s I used to drive it everywhere: dinner; pizza, shops, etc. after a while, the value climb so much that I got paranoid about it being stolen. I also think I interrupted a thief coming out of a restaurant at about 9 PM twilight in the summertime. I became much more careful of where I parked it. I put the club on it but it’s a false sense of security. It has an ignition cut off but not a fuel cut off. i’m not too worried about my car is getting stolen out of my garages. They are protected by multiple dogs, an alarm system and a well stocked safe. I feel fortunate to have never had a car lifted, although I had several break-ins when I lived in Philadelphia. it was a four-door 68 Chevelle I paid 700 bucks for. they all were after the car stereo; once the first one was stolen, the scamps came after the replacement equipment! nowadays, when I take out my valuable classics, I never let them out of my sight. Funny thing is they are way more valuable to me than they would ever sell for. If one was stolen I’d buy it back from the bastards for more than they could sell it for-don’t tell them that!
My vehicle has an extra wire in the factory harness to the engine (no idea what option it was for). The ends of this wire were located so I could simply plug one end to the negative terminal on the coil, and plug the other end to the cigarette lighter. By pushing in the cigarette lighter when I park it, it grounds the points so no spark even if you hot-wire the coil. It’s convenient, looks factory, no modifications required apart from unplugging/plugging wires, and maybe by the time a thief figures it out the engine will be flooded. Years later, having this dead-leg wire off the coil doesn’t seem to have affected the points & condenser either.