THE make and model most favoured by Bradford’s car thieves in 2018 can now be revealed.

A Freedom of Information request by the T&A has found the car brands targeted the most by criminals across the district.

The most stolen car was the Volkswagen Golf, with 157 thefts being recorded by police last year, followed by the Ford Transit which was stolen 116 times. The Audi A3 and its variants (S3, RS3) was the third most popular target, stolen 79 times.

Volkswagens were the most common motors, account for more than ten per cent of all thefts at 256, followed by Ford at 236. Audi again placed third in the list.

More than 2,000 vehicles were stolen in the district in 2018, ranging from cars to vans, scooters and even a tuk-tuk.

In the past year, there were a number of eye-catching incident involving the theft of Volkswagen Golfs.

In September, police were led on a 100 miles per hour chase by a Golf, which had been stolen in Shipley, and officers had to use a stinger device to stop the car.

When officers apprehended the two people inside the car, they found the driver of the car was just 13-years-old.

He was subsequently sentenced to 18 months in youth detention for car theft, dangerous driving and other offences.

Keighley MP John Grogan described the incident at the time as “shocking”, and Shipley MP Philip Davies said it was “one of the worst cases” of dangerous driving he had heard of.

In August, four bungling burglars were given a rude awakening by police after falling asleep in the stolen Golf.

They had stolen the car in a burglary in Baildon, and were spotted having a snooze in Cullingworth when police boxed the car in and arrested them on suspicion of burglary.

Crimes such as car theft are a priority for police in Bradford.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “Acquisitive crime such as burglaries and robberies are also priority crime areas for Bradford District and additional resources are deployed to areas where increases in these offences occur.

“In 2018 the force recovered more than 1,900 stolen vehicles and arrested more than 1,100 people through the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras. This is just one of several tools we use to target vehicle thieves.”

Volkswagen was contacted for comment on the figures.