Putting the ‘cuff’ on metal thieves

A Milwaukie High School grad has developed a device that safeguards a vehicle’s catalytic converter

By Anthony Roberts

The Clackamas Review, Jul 8, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (9 Reader comments)

Anthony Roberts / Clackamas Review

Joe Hutchinson shows off the Catcuff, a device he invented to protect a vehicle's catalytic converter from metal thieves.

The thief was bold and efficient.

In broad daylight, grainy surveillance footage showed him slowly driving past Joe Hutchinson’s Toyota Tacoma, parked in an office complex parking lot in Vancouver. On his third trip past the truck, he hopped out of his car, and appeared to slide underneath the truck before he was lost from the camera’s view.

Hutchinson, a Milwaukie native, headed out to the parking lot after a secretary showed him the tape, and didn’t see anything wrong with the truck. But when he hopped in at the end of the day and turned the key, it sounded more like a Harley Davidson than a Toyota. The thief had ripped out his catalytic converter, a device housed underneath vehicles that helps to filter an engine’s emissions.

Hutchinson had become the latest victim of metal theft, a growing crime which is reaching epidemic proportions as prices for certain metals rise. Catalytic converters contain trace amounts of platinum, palladium, and rhodium, the latter of which can fetch $9,000 per ounce, and the high clearance and bolt-on construction found on late-model Tacomas make them easy targets. The thieves damaged his undercarriage, and the bill to fix his truck was $1,700.

“After it happened, I wondered if there was anything out there to stop this kind of thing,” Hutchinson said.

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