oh gawd, I remember those days. e.g. when the Mercedes (corsshairs) star was required to be on a flexible breakaway mount in case your friendly neighborhood Mercedes owner decided to take it upon himself to take a little drive down yon sidewalk looking for cheap entertainment.....
this of course resulted in the crosshairs becoming an easy theft target, as they were now quite easy to simply twist off. this led to many Mercedes owners rigging the crosshairs with a simple alarm that would activate the car's horn, should some hapless petty thief try to abscond with said booty. I found that out the hard way, as some "friends" of mine (I was 7 at the time) talked me into giving the star a tug because it would "tickle." needless to say, I damned near pissed my pants when the horn went off and I turned around to see the owner who had just emerged from the apartment comlplex heading towards me with a not so pleasant look on his face. this sensory overload persuaded me to hightail it out of there at a very high rate of speed and am convinced to this day that this was the formative experience which led to my later trophy-winning performances at many subsequent track meets