Internal combustion engine having heat accumulator

According to an internal combustion engine of the invention, release operation of an antitheft device is selected as an event generating by necessity prior to the starting of an engine (10), and the pre-heat is started based on the generating timing of the selected event. The start timing of the release operation of the antitheft device is high in terms of both necessity as an event generating prior to the starting of the engine (10) and reproducibility of the time length from its start timing to an arbitrary starting timing of the engine (10). The pre-heat completed state can be secured by starting the pre-heat synchronously with this timing or at a predetermined timing based on the timing, even when the engine is started at an arbitrary timing. Exhaust characteristics and fuel consumption performance can be improved by optimizing the temperature distribution of the engine at starting.