German car thieves favour Porsche

But the overall risk of theft has fallen, with just 23 771 cars stolen in the whole country last year, a decline of 17 per cent from 2004. For every 1 000 insured cars on the road, the overall theft rate was 0.7, the insurance association said.

The theft rate for the Porsche Cayenne 4.5 topped the scale, with 16.4 per thousand stolen, followed closely by BMW's SUV model, the X5.