The four-door sedan was gutted, its tires, seats, doors, CD player - all gone.

In a demonstration Thursday, a group of Utah Motor Vehicle Enforcement Division officers dismantled the Honda for the second time, and already was two minutes faster.

Their point: It's quick and easy to "chop" a car and make a buck.

While the Kelley Blue Book suggested retail value for a 1999 Honda Civic (with 77,000 miles) is $8,975, a car thief can disassemble it in a chop shop and sell its parts for up to $10,035.

The most-stolen vehicles are those manufactured in the late 1980s and early 1990s, since their parts often grow more valuable as the cars age. In some cases, chop shop bandits make two to four times the car's actual worth.

What's more, most enterprising crooks scratch off the vehicle identification number (VIN), the government's equivalent of a Social Security number for vehicles, making it difficult for the police to track parts and link them to thieves.

In Utah, police say chop shop operations run in alleys and garages are lucrative businesses. Body shops, which can buy stolen parts from car thieves far below their retail price, are creating the demand, said Sgt. Eric McPherson.

"To order these parts is extremely expensive," he said. "If someone has clean parts, they're not dented or damaged, they [body shop owners] will take them in a heartbeat."

Last year, more than 1 million cars were stolen in the U.S. Utah ranked 25th in the nation for number of thefts, with a rate of 320 cars stolen per 100,000 people.

Though the Utah Motor Vehicle Enforcement Division regularly inspects body shops, which are licensed by the state, it's difficult to make a bust when the VINs are missing from the parts, McPherson said.

A more recent safety feature in cars - airbags - have joined the list of attractive parts and accessories to steal, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). Auto body shops pay between $100 and $200 for stolen airbags, then defraud consumers and the insurance industry by charging around $1,500, the bureau said.

After being stripped of their parts, most cars are hauled off and crushed, McPherson said. Car engines and transmissions have identifiable serial numbers that thieves don't want lying around.

Or, crooks clone legitimate vehicle identification numbers, stick them in stolen cars and sell them to auto dealers in different states. Because states' Department of Motor Vehicles databases are not linked, McPherson said, duplicate VINs don't show up.

Dane Wood, a senior special agent for the NICB, said consumers should be on the lookout for flood-damaged cars stolen from the Hurricane Katrina disaster area. Besides being stolen property, many of the cars have mud or corrosion in the wheel wells, presenting a safety hazard.

Wood said there are four ways owners can protect their cars:

* Lock your car and take your keys.

* Equip your car with a visual or audio warning device.

* Install a "kill" switch, fuel cut-off or smart keys that can stop a car from starting for a thief.

* Consider using a tracking device, which alerts both you and law enforcement the moment an unauthorized person uses your vehicle.

lrosetta@sltrib.com