Touted unstealable, $227,000 vehicle stolen 3 days after purchase
An Englishman who had his luxury SUV stolen from his driveway less than 60 hours after driving it home claims the dealership assured him that the vehicle was “unstealable”.
John, a 45-year-old man from Warwickshire, UK, bought a £183,000 ($227,000) Range Rover 2024 SV Edition One from a dealership in Coventry on December 14, last year. The limited edition SUV (only 550 units were released in the United Kingdom) featured £10,000 graphite wheels, a luxurious high-tech interior, and all sorts of interesting features, like seats that vibrate to the sound of music playing inside the car.
John knew that it would attract unwanted attention in a country where the number of luxury vehicle thefts have been increasing in recent years, but he claims the dealership told him that the car featured a new Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) security upgrade that made it unstealable. Less than 60 hours later, John’s car was stolen from his driveway.
“I felt safe with this knowledge, I had just paid £183,000 for a car made by JLR and the staff were confident that they had now made these cars safe and unstealable,” John told reporters, adding that he had asked the dealership staff about having a Ghost Immobiliser installed, which required a password to be entered in order to start the vehicle, but was told that it was unnecessary because “no one’s taking this car.”
Less than 60 hours after driving his new Range Rover home, John woke up to several missed calls from the car’s tracking company and looked out the window of his house to see an empty driveway. CCTV footage shows a car drop off three individuals at around 1 am, two of whom head toward the SUV, while the third acts as a lookout. None get near enough to the owner’s house to use a key scanner, but they somehow gain access to the car and then take only 15 minutes to start it and drive away.
The owner is still baffled about how the thieves managed to steal his luxury Range Rover without even smashing a window but believes that the fact that the car dropped them off and just drove away means that they were confident that they would be able to get what they came for.
“They did not come near to the house with a scanning device to get a key signal, whatever they did was more sophisticated than this, they didn’t need one,” the 45-year-old man said.
John has already complained to Jaguar Range Rover (JGR), claiming a “catastrophic failure of the security system advertised as state-of-the-art,” but the company is having none of it. A spokesperson has already told members of the press that JGR will not consider reviewing any claims of responsibility, because car theft is a risk that all owners face.
