No one could have guessed that a sporty little two-door named the Mustang would go on to sell more than a half-million vehicles in its first year, and that it would become an iconic American car almost overnight. To date over eight and a half million Mustangs have been built…but wouldn’t it be interesting to know just how many of those had been stolen in the past almost 50 years?

A study by the National Institute of Crime Bureau details which year Mustangs were the most popular with car thieves, and the results may surprise you.

The report, which goes through 2011, details many things about the Ford Mustang, such as its lowest production year (2009, when just 66,623 Mustangs were sold) to its best year for sales (1966 when almost 550,000 Mustangs were sold.) As far as auto theft goes though, the year the most Mustangs were stolen was in 1981 when 20,708 Mustangs were stolen.

So what year were the fewest Mustangs stolen? That would be 2011, when just 4,347 Mustangs were reported stolen. This probably has a lot to due with modern security devices that thwart many would-be thieves. It also probably has to do with a serious drop-off in Mustang production, as the pony car now sells fewer than 100,000 units a year.

But what is the most popular Mustang to be stolen? Well that you might be surprised to find out is the 2000 model year Mustang, which the NICB reports saw 7,085 thefts between 2001 and 2011. In fact, 9 of the top 10 Most Stolen Mustangs come from the SN95/New Edge era. The only non-SN95 Mustang is the ‘89 Fox-body, with 2,629 thefts reported in the past ten years. So, is your Mustang safe?