I thought it was their new weight-saving drive to reduce fuel use!

It's not only Vauxhall's in Bedfordshire.

A couple of years ago my boss came out of his house one morning to find almost the whole of the front end of his wife's Ford Fiesta had been removed during the night! The car, of which I saw a photo, looked like something that was in a breakers yard. This happened in Hornchurch, Essex, though, of course, Ford cars haven't been build in the county for many years, now. But, like with Vauxhalls in Bedfordshire, there's probably still a high ownership percentage of Ford cars in the Essex area.

This was obviously done by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Nothing remaining had been damaged, no parts of the wiring loom was cut and all the connectors removed properly. When he arranged to have the car taken to his local Ford Main Dealer for repair he asked them how long it would take for someone who knew exactly what they were doing to remove all that stuff. They reckoned about 10 to 15 minutes, that's all!

When he reported it to the police they informed him this wasn't the first time they'd encountered this type of theft. Obviously, these items were stolen to order because someone, somewhere, had an accident damaged car to repair.