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Car thieves' 10 favorite luxury rides

The most stolen luxury car in America is a Mercedes model, but BMW, Cadillac, and Lexus models also made the list of thieves' favorite luxury cars. 

The Highway Loss Data Institute on the Ford F-250 pickup's popularity among car thieves. But as nice as the F-250 can be, the National Insurance Crime Bureau听knows that some brand-conscious baddies have a taste for high-end marques. And so, it's published a list of the ten luxury rides that car thieves love.

To gather its data, the NICB looked at auto thefts reported over four calendar years: 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. According to the organization,听4,384 luxury vehicles were stolen during that period.

To add some nuance to its analysis, the NICB divided cars into three segments: compact luxury, mid-sized luxury, and premium luxury. Between 2009 and 2012, 2,150 compact luxury cars were stolen -- considerably more than the 1,734 mid-sized luxury cars and the 500 premium luxury cars that went missing. (Though the NICB doesn't say so, we'd guess that compacts were most popular with thieves because they're cheaper and thus, more numerous than mid-size and premium models.)

And so, the moment you've all been waiting for -- the 10 most-stolen luxury rides:

1. Mercedes-Benz C-Class (compact) -- 485 thefts
听2. BMW 3-Series (compact) --听471听thefts
听3. Infiniti G-Series (compact) --听405听thefts
听4. Mercedes-Benz E-Class (mid-size) --听381听thefts
听5. Cadillac CTS (mid-size) --听326听thefts
听6. BMW 5-Series (mid-size) --听256听thefts
听7. Lincoln MKZ (mid-size) --听226听thefts
听8. Acura TSX (compact) --听190听thefts
听9. Lexus IS (compact) --听177听thefts
听10. Mercedes-Benz S-Class (premium) --听163听thefts

听The NICB also released a list of the most popular states for car thieves to ply their trade. Chances are, you can guess the top four without looking, but just so you know:

1. California
听2. Florida
听3. New Jersey
听4. New York
听5. Michigan
听6. Texas
听7. Georgia
听8. Illinois
听9. Pennsylvania
听10. Maryland

The NICB found that recovery rates on stolen luxury vehicles was fairly high -- at least . On average,听83.7 percent of the vehicles stolen during the study period were recovered.

That said, some cars fared poorer than others. The听Infiniti G-Series had the highest number of unrecovered vehicles (83 of 405). Two Mercedes-Benz models often went missing for good, too: the E-Class (80 of 381 unrecovered) and the C-Class (78 of 485).听

Curiously, though fewer premium models were stolen than others, premiums were far less likely to be recovered. Among compact and mid-size luxury vehicles, just 14.3 percent and 13. 5 percent remained unrecovered at the end of the study. With premium vehicles, the 34.4 percent remained at-large.

For the complete NICB report, .听