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They Even Gave Him the Keys

DW staff (sms)April 5, 2006

Anyone without a conscience can get dash out of the diner when they can't -- or don't want to -- pay the bill. But one German upped the ante by taking 14 luxury cars for open-ended test drives.

https://p.dw.com/p/8ClH
The Audi A8:<br>Looking just isn't enough for some peopleImage: AP

Plenty of 30-year-old German men have a passion for fast cars. But most men of meagre means won't get more than a moment's chance to sit inside the latest four-wheeled wagon to roll out of southern Germany's factories.

But fawning over printouts filled with horsepower, city gas mileage and turning curves at the local auto show wasn't enough for one 30-year-old German. After a bit of car-talk, he convinced sales people to give him the keys to the luxury cars he had been ogling for a test drive, using stolen driver's licenses and identity cards as deposit.

Cars worth one millions euros driven off the lot

Autos im Bremerhavener Hafen
Police are wondering just how big the thief's garage isImage: AP

Prosecutors in the German cities of Chemnitz and Hildesheim on Wednesday called on police to be on the look out for the man with a taste for fast cars, who they believe comes from the eastern German state of Saxony.

The thief's and latest conquest was an Audi A8 taken from a Bavarian auto dealer on Saturday. The most recent feat, worth 25,000 euros ($30,641) on its own, brought the carjacker's total to 14 cars worth about one million euros in all.

Authorities have no leads as to where the suspect could be.