THOM WESTCOTT

“A highlight of her Discovery ownership was getting between a mafia boss and his security detail’s 4x4s, when she had a gun levelled at her”

IT has been an unexpectedly eventful lockdown for Range Rover Sport owner David and his wife Natalya, who live in a leafy London suburb. “Like most of the rest of the country, we were watching Boris’ speech on Sunday evening when suddenly it was interrupted by the phone ringing,” David tells me, during a socially-distanced meeting in mutual friend Krisztina’s new flat. “It was a lady phoning from Land Rover, because they have some kind of tracking system, which alerts them if a vehicle moves unusually far away from its key. She said: ‘Your car has had an antennae failure’.” David told the lady there was no problem with his Range Rover which was, as far as he knew, parked up outside his house. “Could you look outside, to check if the car is there?” she asked.

When David went to the window, he found the street outside empty. His beloved 2018 Range Rover Sport was nowhere to be seen, evidently stolen, and Boris’ lockdown speech had been irrevocably interrupted.

“The Range Rover Sport is one of the most popular models for thieves because they’re easy to steal and are an iconic, valuable model so, at night I always use a steering lock, but it was still daylight and it was parked right outside my house,” David says. “And I keep my keys at the other end of the house because of this modern system of stealing cars called ‘relay theft’ where they use a computer to interfere with – and hijack – the keyless key-fob system, if the keys are near the vehicle.” Apparently this theft-assisting computerised hacking system can be picked up for just £30.

David called his insurance company and then the police who, aside from logging the theft, were fairly unhelpful.

Natalya has the fine accolade of being the first woman in Moscow to own a Discovery (or so the rather incredulous dealer told her when she bought it back in 2002). “It was the last model with small rear windows, it was a very nice car and perfect for me because I was regularly driving 300 kilometres from Moscow to our summer home in the countryside,” she says, fondly recalling it being safe, a nice height and perfect for ferrying her son’s sporting equipment around. “People used to stare at me because there weren’t many 4x4s in Russia at that time. Only rich guys had them and certainly no women,” she says. A highlight of her five-year ownership was inadvertently getting between a mafia boss and his security detail’s 4x4s, in Moscow, when she had a gun levelled at her.

Back in that leafy London suburb, after the theft, Natalya called a friend in Moscow who runs another high-end western car showroom, to explain what had happened. He recommended they immediately went looking for the Land Rover, covering a three-squaremile radius. Apparently, he said, most high-end stolen vehicles were initially parked up nearby, usually in a cul-de-sac near a train station and left for a few days, during which time the thieves would monitor the vehicle to see if it had another (new and non-gps) tracker system in operation. If the vehicle was still in situ after three days, the thieves would know it was safe to relocate it further afield. Apparently most such high-end stolen vehicles are eventually transferred, with new number plates, in a container heading towards eastern Europe.

With no better suggestions from the police, David and his neighbour spent the Monday morning driving around the locale before David had to abandon the search to go to work. The neighbour, presumably with plenty of lockdown time on his hands, volunteered to keep searching and, after a couple of hours, called David and read out a number plate. It was the right one.

“I can’t believe it, I’ve found your Land Rover!” the ecstatic neighbour cried. Sure enough, it was found three miles away, parked in a cul-de-sac near a train station. From 1786 miles away, that Russian car dealer offered more accurate and practical advice than the local British constabulary.

But should you really go and just reclaim your own stolen car? David received a raft of different advice. His insurance company told him not to go near it. Natalya agreed, fearing the thieves would be nearby, watching the car and suggested telling the police to stake it out and catch the thieves when they returned to the Range Rover. The police, however, said they had no resources available to conduct any such stake-out operation, and recommended that David independently reclaim his vehicle as soon as possible.

So that is exactly what he did, having to call out a recovery vehicle because the thieves had left the Range Rover immobilised.

“I’d had my previous car for 12 years. This was the first time in 40 years I’d bought a brand-new car and I was expecting this one would last until my retirement, when I was planning to downsize to a Mini Moke for my retirement,” he says. Much mirth ensues as Krisztina Googles Mini Moke, since none of us, apart from David, know what one is.

“A friend of mine told me I had been ‘under-carred’ for years, and I know Natalya’s an elitist, so I bought that Range Rover,” he says. Natalya interrupts to say: “But darling, this Range Rover is a very common car. I wanted something special like an Aston Martin Rapide.”

David admits that, although he was delighted, Natalya was disappointed they had got the Range Rover back so quickly, as she had been planning its replacement from the moment it was stolen.

Anyway, the unscathed Range Rover Sport is now back on the road with David at the wheel and, he says with a chuckle: “The moral of this story is not to buy a big-dick, £70-grand car.”