Tests show a car price is no indication of security

The cost gives little indication of how secure a car is from thieves and joy riders, whether it is a sports model or a basic runaround, insurers say.

A study of 50 new models on sale in British showrooms found that a £26,000 convertible, Honda's S2000, was the easiest car in the country both to break into and drive away.

The state-of-the-art Honda rated just one star in each of two categories created by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) to test how easy it is to enter a car and then steal it. By contrast, the research – which marked vehicles on a scale of one to five stars – gave the Vauxhall Corsa, costing about £9,000, five stars for its difficulty to enter and four for its difficulty to steal.

Among the 10 worst cars was the American-made Chrysler Voyager – the people-carrier favoured by the Prime Minister – which rated two stars and one star respectively. Kia, a Korean car company, took third and fourth places for its Carens and Sedona models. None of the worst five cars rated more than two stars in any category.

The Smart car, favoured by urbanites for its ability to park in spaces that ordinary vehicles cannot reach, rated two stars each. The Jaguar X-type was the highest-placed British model with five and four stars while the Rover 75 Classic was rated the 20th easiest car to break into and drive away with four and three stars. The most impregnable vehicle under the New Car Security Ratings was the Japanese-made Lexus LS430, which was the only car to gain five stars for each test.

Honda UK, whose Stream Sport was also the 10th easiest target for thieves, said it was perplexed by the findings and would be contacting the ABI to discuss its findings.

A spokesman said: "We can understand it coming low in the break-in table because it is one of the few soft-tops tested. But we are mystified by the low ratings for theft resistance as it has the same immobilisers as the other Honda models, which got good marks in that category."

The ratings were based on tests done by the Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre at Thatcham, Berkshire. Experts subjected the cars to "destructive attack", testing components ranging from ignition locks to sound system codes and steering wheel clamps to window glazing.

Mark Inman, a research manager, said yesterday the tests had shown that a more expensive car was not necessarily more secure than cheaper models. "Many of the cheaper smaller cars performed just as well as bigger models which people would expect to have more sophisticated defences.

"Where a car gets five stars it means it can't be broken into using traditional methods, such as a brick through the window or stolen after starting the ignition by hot-wiring.

"They could still be stolen if using more advanced means because no car is completely crime-proof, but it would still be very hard unless the criminal has your keys," he said.

Car thefts and break-ins fell by 7 per cent in the year up to March. Nevertheless, nearly 340,000 cars are stolen and 630,000 broken into every year.