The Most "Bizzaro" automobile anti-theft device ever -- the Bosco "Rubber Man"

As some of you know, I am working on a history of auto theft entitled "Stealing Cars." At night, while watching TV, I love to read auto history material, and especially like the old publications of Floyd Clymer. Last evening I found this description of a rubber man in a Floyd Clymer Auto History Scrapbook published in 1947:

Perhaps the most bizarre, and in retrospect, humorous countermeasure was the Bosco "Collapsible Rubber Driver." Made in Akron, Ohio, ad copy for the rubber man claimed that: "locks may be picked or jimmied. Cars may be stolen in spite of them. But no thief ever attempted to steal a car with a man at the wheel. [It] is so lifelike and terrifying, that nobody a foot away can tell it isn't a real, live man. When Not in use, this marvelous device is simply deflated and put under the seat."[i]

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[i] Floyd Clymer, Historical Scrapbook No. 4 (Los Angeles: Clymer, 1947), p. 162.