Don't be surprised if you walk into a chic restaurant and find that the customer next to you brought his Mercedes hood ornament to the table along with his portable car stereo. And don't be too quick to touch that gold laurel wreath ornament on your neighbor's new Cadillac. If he's like many Caddy owners, he may have it wired for sound.

As thefts of automobile accessories increase across the nation--about $1.3 million such crimes were reported in 1988--Southern California motorists are going to great lengths to keep their hardware on their cars.

But it's not easy keeping a car intact these days. That's especially true for Mercedes-Benz and Cadillac owners whose car emblems are most popular among teen-agers who like to wear the Mercedes three-pointed star or the Cadillac wreath as necklaces, belt buckles and key chains.

"It's somewhat of a craze, I think," Lt. Greg Vasquez of the Los Angeles Police Department's Burglary Auto Theft Division said. "The kids wear them as ornaments. It's like a status symbol, a trendy thing to have in your possession. It's done in all segments of the city."

In the city of Los Angeles last year, LAPD statistics show there were 13,868 thefts from vehicles, which includes hood ornaments and hub caps. But some police officers believe that figure is low, because hood ornament thefts often go unreported.

The latest theft-deterrent device is an alarm that sounds the car horn if someone tries to steal the wired-up hood ornament. Manufactured by Celebrity Inc. of Placerville, it fits all American-made cars with vertical hood ornaments; another model fits all Mercedes-Benz models.

A Removable Emblem

For Mercedes-Benz, there also is a removable emblem available.

Responding to customer demand, Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories recently began offering removable Mercedes-Benz hood stars. Gold plated models cost $129; chrome, $99.

"We decided to offer removable ones, like the portable car stereos, because so many customers requested it," Kathryn Johns of Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories said. "It's really a big problem for the Mercedes owners. It's $100 every time they lose one. This way, they can just stick it in their pocket when they leave the car."

Rolls-Royce's Flying Lady ornaments get ripped off, too, but they're too heavy to be worn around the neck, leading some dealers to suspect that the stolen emblems get sold into some auto parts black market, as do Rolls-Royce hubcaps, which cost $1,200 a set.