Rap Music Auto Alarms Take a Turn to Verse : Security: A Canoga Park inventor has updated an electronic system to include a rhyming message for would-be thieves.

Next time you brush against a car in the grocery store parking lot, it might just break out in song.

Well, rap, actually.

The Canoga Park inventor of an electronic car alarm system that verbally warns passersby to back off has updated his creation to include a musical message urging would-be thieves to bust a move instead of bust in.

Venture too close to a car outfitted with Michael Nykerk’s Invisibeam system and a voice from somewhere under the hood lets loose:

“Yo! I know you wanna look inside, but I suggest you step away from the ride.”

Linger, and the ditty continues:

“Ease back from the ride. Stop hangin’ around. Cuz if you don’t, my alarm will sound.”

After a final admonition to leave the car unmolested, the voice counts down from five. And when it hits zero, the car throws an electronic tantrum--horn honking, lights flashing and the voice shouting:

“Someone’s tryin’ to break in to my ride.”

While the reaction is often amusement, Nykerk insists that his invention is more than a $285 toy.

Conventional alarms, he said, are “like buying car insurance after an accident” because they sound only after damage is done. But because his 3-year-old system warns intruders before they touch the car, “it’s like having someone stand next to your car all the time.”

The concept is simple. A microwave field, projected from inside the car, surrounds the vehicle. The field can be adjusted to pick up movement within a few inches or a foot of the car. When movement is detected--whether a crook, an unsuspecting pedestrian or a heavy rain--the electronic voice is activated. (Nykerk suggests shutting the device off during rainstorms.)

If movement stops, the program is reset and the intruder is thanked--in one of seven languages.

In addition to the rap in English and Spanish, Nykerk’s system also reproduces authoritative messages in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese and Thai. With the additional languages, Nykerk said, owners of foreign cars can have English and another language installed so, for example, a Mercedes can warn a crook, “Halt!”

The original Invisibeam’s voice sounds like RoboCop.

“Warning. You are too close to the vehicle. Step back. Step back or the alarm will sound.”

All of the recordings are done by professional voice artists, and Nykerk said the rap version was performed by a well-known musician, but he declined to identify him.

A former BMW salesman, Nykerk hit upon the idea of a talking alarm in the early 1980s as he watched car owners struggle to understand the confusing series of beeps and chirps that most alarms employ to relay information. Vocalarm was the first system from Nykerk’s Electronic Security Products, and it told car owners in plain English whether the alarm was on or off and when it was last set off.

“I like gadgets, things that are different,” said Nykerk, whose office decor includes a dancing cola can, a fake burning cigarette and a life-size cardboard cutout of Batman’s nemesis, the Joker.

Invisibeam was introduced in 1989. Nykerk said thousands of the units have been installed.

Los Angeles police investigators describe the system variously as “a pain in the butt” and “neat,” but they did not know how effective the devices are as a deterrent to break-ins.

“If something prevents a crime, how do you know?” said one officer who asked not to be named. “There is absolutely no way to judge.”

Jorgen Makitalo, whose Reseda shop installs the system and who has one in his car, said none of his customers’ cars have been burglarized or vandalized.

“But it’s kind of a toy, of course,” he admitted.