The wife of a colleague of mine had her car stolen some years back. It was rather like the car that Jerry described, it needed a lot of work to get through it's next MOT test and they were thinking of taking it to a breaker's yard. About six months later the police told them that they had found the car. The thief had done lots of work on it and even given it a re-spray. My friends wife drove it for another three years !

A couple of years ago, I sold a car which had been sitting in my drive for over six months. It wasn't really a runner and I lent the two guys a tow-rope to get it home - they said they wanted the car for spares. Two days later the police knocked on my door and told me that it had been used as a get-away car for a robbery from an electrical store. Several witnesses had noticed the car because it had moss all over it and was mis-firing and smoking badly. I gave the police the address from the transfer document and although it was a false house number it was only 50yards from the thieves proper address - and they had the car parked in front!

The police recovered all the stolen property - but I never got my tow-rope back - the thieving b*****ds !