Another sunny weekend, another chance to take the MGB Roadster out for some open top motoring. This time I took my youngest daughter to a nearby town for some shopping.
I was somewhat nervous about leaving it in a supermarket carpark, partly because of carpark dents. But the car looked absolutely tiny in between a couple of modern cars, with plenty of space in between. Shows how much cars have increased in size over the past few decades. So the possibility of somebody denting it with a door becomes less likely.
I was more worried about the potential of theft, because it would be easy to steal. The doors don’t lock, and what would be the point of locking them anyway, soft tops are easy to break into. The car would suffer more damage that way.
But this time I didn’t even have the soft top on there, I used the tonneau instead.
But I wonder if the current generation of thieves even knows how to hot wire a car. It’s been about 30 years since you could do that to a new car, so 99%+ of cars in a car park are going to be un-nickable without the keys.
The car has a battery cut-off switch behind the drivers seat, near the battery cradle. I use it all the time but it’s quite a common trick, I believe. The baddies probably know that.
There’s also a rather vintage anti-theft device fitted to the car, in the form of a metal arm with a padlock embedded on the end that locks onto the gear stick. But I’ve never been able to get it to fit.
That is, until I got home today and had a brainwave.
I’d tried putting the car into second gear before, but it turns out all I had to do was put it in reverse. The gearstick reaches further towards the lock that way, so I was able to lock it for the first time. Duh!
It’s logical if you think about it. A car locked into a forward gear could still be stolen if a thief dipped the clutch while starting and didn’t mind a very slow drive to his lair. But reversing a car down the road while trying to avoid attention from the police would be far more difficult.
Anyway, I’m glad finally developed some common sense and got the device working.
Might still buy a stop lock for the steering wheel, though!