17 May 2001: The Suzuki Wagon R+ has come out tops in a new anti-theft test carried out by Auto Express magazine. In doing so it has put some of motoring's more illustrious names in the shade.

The tall, angular city car, whose price starts at £10,395 ex-works here, not along beat the Mercs, Jags and Beemers, it baffled the experts who tried to break into it.

In doing so it made a little bit of history as this is the first time in the five-year history of the Auto express survey that testers failed to break their way into a car of this sector and price. They did manage to get into a Porsche Boxter and a Mercedes in 33 seconds, a BMW 525i in 37 seconds and a Jaguar XJ in a mere 27 seconds.

Bottom of the break-in list was the Daihatsu Cuore - it took the experts a trifling 3.13 seconds, according to the Auto Express check.
The magazine arranged for 50 cars to be assessed in a real and practical way by locksmiths.

Of the 50 tested, 33 were broken into in two minutes or less. Last year the same number were tested and 21 passed the five-minute barrier, but only 15 succeeded in doing so this year.

In order of difficulty the top ten cars in the survey were; Suzuki Wagon R+, Saab 9-5, Volvo C70, Skoda Fabia, Audi A2, Toyota MR2, Volvo S60, Audi A4, Citroen C5, Renault Laguna.