Although it may not be your biggest consideration if you are thinking about buying a new car (or a new to you used car) have you ever wondered just which cars are the favorite targets of the less friendly sector of the Florida population that prefers to help themselves to someone else’s car rather than actually go out and get their own? 

The following is a breakdown of the top five most stolen cars in Florida in 2012, as complied by the National Insurance Institute and some of them are quite surprising: 

Full Size Ford 4 x 4 Pickup 

The most stolen car in the Sunshine State in 2012 was actually the rather noticeable full sized Ford 4 x 4 pickup, proving that car thieves are not exactly discreet. 

2000 Honda Civic Si

The 2000 version of the Honda Civic Si is light years behind its 2013 counterpart in so many ways – it has a cassette player as standard for gawd’s sake, when did you last even see a cassette tape? – and yet apparently this the Civic that is stolen most often, probably because its standard security features were well, door locks. There is no doubt though that the 2000 Honda Civic Si was a great hot hatch for its time, so if any owner has been careful about regular maintenance and cosmetic details like paint protection maybe it is not so hard to understand why it is a magnet for thieves after all. 

1996 Honda Accord 

This one is a little harder to understand. Hondas are, on the whole, good solid cars and many so seem like they run forever, but they are not exactly the best looking, or even vaguely distinctive cars on the road, but maybe that is the point as far as a car thief would be concerned. 

1997 Nissan Altima 

The appearance of this car next on the list proves one thing – Florida car thieves apparently have a bit of a thing for Japanese cars. Maybe its the longevity that they offer or the fairly decent gas mileage or simply the fact that a car this old, unless it has been upgraded in some way, has zero standard security features. 

2011 Toyota Camry 

And.. its another Japanese car, but a much newer one this time and one that did come with far better security features than the others standard. So does this mean that Floridian car owners who chose Japanese are particularly careless with their vehicles or are these simply easier to break into? We’ll leave to decide that one..