2012 Dodge Ram 4500 9' Flatbed 22000 Miles Still Under Warranty Crew Cab 4x4 on 2040-cars

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Thieves still love older Hondas and pickups most, says NICB [w/video]

No one wants to have their car stolen, but a new study by the National Insurance Crime Bureau has some bad news for older Honda owners and pickup drivers. Fortunately, it has better news for drivers overall. The group is reporting that according to preliminary data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, thefts were down 3.2 percent in 2013 (versus 2012) to fewer than 700,000 cars. That's the lowest figure since 1967. That's also less than half of the peak of over 1.66 million thefts in 1991. "The drop in thefts is good news for all of us," says NICB President and CEO Joe Wehrle. "But it still amounts to a vehicle being stolen every 45 seconds and losses of over $4 billion a year."
Honda drivers might not find it such good news with older Accord and Civic models topping this year's theft study. Toyota and Dodge can't really celebrate, either, with two models each on the list, as well. Overall, this year's list was split evenly between foreign and domestic models, which were mostly pickups.
The 10 most likely vehicles to be stolen in 2013 were:

12 new cars that will never go out of style

Some cars never go out of style. It’s rare, but it happens. They get old. They get depreciated. But they never stop looking cool.  Some might call them modern or instant classics. Within a few years theyÂ’re no longer the latest and greatest, no longer the flavor of the month, but they remain special. Eternally special. Timeless.  These cars arenÂ’t necessarily going to be worth a fortune someday. However, some may not depreciate as rapidly or as far as other models. But thatÂ’s not what weÂ’re talking about here. These are the cars that enthusiasts will always find desirable from the curbside. TheyÂ’re the cars you end up shopping on eBay late at night 10 years later because you canÂ’t get them out of your head. TheyÂ’re the cars that will forever excite you when you spot a clean one in traffic or in a parking lot.  There are plenty of recent examples over the past couple of decades that could count as instant design classics. But then we got to thinking, what 2021 models will be forever cool to stare at? Which new cars and trucks on sale today will we be shopping on eBay late at night in the 2030s? We kept supercars and other ultra-expensive cars off the list to keep things within the realm of attainability, and ended up with 12 total cars. Lexus LC WeÂ’re not applying a numerical ranking to any of the cars on this list, but if we were, the Lexus LC would be No. 1. There isnÂ’t another car design out there that can stir our emotions the way an LC can when itÂ’s just standing still. This car is a concept design come true in the most beautiful of ways, and itÂ’s a shoo-in winner for Concours events decades into the future. All of this heaping praise, and we havenÂ’t even gotten to the LC 500Â’s intoxicating 5.0-liter V8. It doesnÂ’t win drag races. It wonÂ’t be the fastest around the track against any similarly-priced competition. But none of that matters. ItÂ’s quite possibly the best car you can buy new, and that says it all when it comes to the LC. Chevrolet Corvette It might not be the stunner that the Lexus LC is, but the new C8 Corvette is and will always be a special vehicle. ItÂ’s the first mid-engine Corvette, which instantly cements it into an automotive hall of fame section of sorts. All of the performance stats and specs are there to back up its supercar-like looks, and it remains the best performance bargain on sale today.

Autonomous tech will drive motorheads off the road

While autonomous technology could make car travel much safer and more efficient — and automakers and marketers are salivating over the prospect of a "passenger economy" that could potentially generate $7 trillion by 2050 — those of us who enjoy driving are not so stoked. Experts have predicted that as autonomous vehicles are deployed in large numbers, human-driven cars eventually could be outlawed on public roads due to the carnage they create, which is currently more than 41,000 deaths a year in the U.S. alone and climbing. Such scenarios have driving enthusiasts envisioning a "Red Barchetta" style nightmare becoming reality, making Rush lyricist Neil Peart a clairvoyant as well as one of rock's most badass skin-pounders. But there could be a couple of refuges left for motorheads, and they won't be on public roads. As Popular Science's Joe Brown points out in a recent editorial, we're seeing a wave of vehicles being offered by legit mainstream automakers that aren't made for public roads. The poster child of this vanguard is the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, which comes with a crate full of goodies that lets you turn the already formidable street-legal muscle car into a drag-strip dominator. Brown also notes that two out of five of the Ford GT's driving modes are for use on the track, "catering to the $450,000 machine's club-racing clientele." We're also currently enjoying the heyday of production off-road-ready pickups that kicked off with the Ford Raptor in 2009. The latest salvo in this escalating war of overachieving trucks is the Chevy Colorado ZR2 that can take on the likes of California's Rubicon Trail without issue. Brown also gives a shout-out to his magazine's Grand Award Winner, the Alta Motors Redshift MX, which "isn't even allowed on public roads" and is "meant for bombing around motocross tracks, big backyards and single-track woods trails." If you follow Brown on Instagram, you know that he's also a two-wheel aficionado, and he points out that sales of off-road bikes are leaving street machines in the dust. Sales of off-highway motorcycles rose 29 percent between 2012 and 2016, according to the ­Motorcycle Industry Council — compared to 6 percent for road-bike sales during the same period. "That's a nearly 400-percent drubbing," Brown remarks.