THE British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association is considering a change to its prestigious security awards to focus more on mainstream fleet cars. Differentiating between the security systems on luxury cars has become so difficult that the association feels its awards would be better targeted at more budget-conscious models.

The current car security awards have two categories, above and below £25,000, which means in the lower group the judges found themselves assessing security across a range which stretched from supermini to executive and prestige models. In the luxury sector, a money-no-object approach to security systems means many cars have become 'unstealable' - BMW, for example, has not come across a single case where a thief has overcome its EWS II rolling code electronic immobiliser, fitted to all cars since 1995.

'We are thinking of dropping the expensive car award next year, and splitting the volume category into two or three,' said BVRLA chairman Norman Donkin. These would still focus on manufacturers rather than individual cars, but were more likely to mirror the distinctions made by rental companies in terms of car size groupings.