Wild Car Theft Stories That Sound Made Up But Aren’t

Car theft has been around as long as street parking. Before cars, people stole horses. In 18th-century Pennsylvania, horse thieves got branded with the letters H and T on their foreheads after being stuck in a pillory for over an hour. Wild times.

Readers were asked by Jalopnik to share their worst car theft stories and the responses flooded in. Some people hit the character limit. The stories ranged from elaborate schemes to desperate crimes of opportunity. Here are the ones that stick with you.

The Canadian Camping Trip

A family went on a month-long vacation, camping in New Hampshire before heading to Montreal. They had a caravan of three or four cars plus a 1994 F150 loaded with all the camping gear and luggage. First week in Montreal was great. Then one morning they looked out the hotel window and the F150 was gone. Everything in it too.

Cops found the truck a few hours later but everything inside was stolen. All the camping gear, all the random stuff, just gone. Yeah, leaving it all unsecured in the back sounds crazy now, but it was the '90s and it was Canada. Different world back then.

Paying to Get Your Own Car Back

Someone had their car stolen in college. Reported it immediately. A week later the cops called saying it was sitting in a tow yard. The thieves ditched it when it ran out of gas.

Getting it back cost over $400 even though it was reported stolen the same day it disappeared. The tow company had already moved it to long-term storage halfway across the city. When they finally got to it, the car was trashed and wouldn't start. Couldn't afford to tow it somewhere or get it fixed. The tow yard offered to take it off their hands for $200. Otherwise, storage fees would keep piling up.

So in college, this person basically paid $600 for the privilege of having their car stolen.

The Christmas Party Miracle

At a work Christmas party held at a local restaurant, someone came running in saying cars were getting broken into across the street. The parking lot was a dark dirt lot with no street lights. Everyone rushed out to check their vehicles.

One person was driving a 2009 Pontiac G8 GT they'd bought a month earlier. Every single car had a smashed side window except theirs. No idea why the thieves skipped it. Maybe they thought it had an alarm. Maybe they just had good taste.

Two Cars, One Night

A guy and his girlfriend both had their cars stolen the same night. He had an MGB, she had an Austin-Healey Sprite. His brother came home late and asked why the MG was parked around the corner with the lights on. It wasn't. Both cars were gone.

They found the MG around the corner. Someone had properly hotwired it but it wouldn't start. Lucas electrics for the win. The thief gave up and grabbed the girlfriend's Sprite instead. It got recovered a couple days later with a much bigger battery swapped in, stolen from a Buick nearby. The cop told them to just keep the battery.

The Engine Was Missing

A guy came home to find his brother there but his brother's old Ford wasn't parked outside. They walked around the block and found it one street over, nose into the sidewalk. Had to push it back home because the engine was still sitting in their dad's garage.

Someone tried really hard to bump start it by pushing it down a hill before realizing there was nothing under the hood to start.

They Left the Tools

Early 2000s, someone left town overnight to go fishing. Came back the next day to find the trunk of their '96 Cavalier wide open. They had a speaker box with two 10-inch subs, two amps, a crossover, over 100 CDs, and the radio in there. All of it gone.

They also had all their work tools in the trunk since they worked in low-voltage installation. The thieves used those tools to strip out all the audio equipment and then left the tools behind. Lucky break since they needed them for work on Monday.

Dumped and Robbed

A 19-year-old drove from his college to visit his high school girlfriend at her school in the Bronx. He had a 2000 Honda EX with a JDM B18C swap, pretty hot setup for 2008. A couple hours after he got there, she dumped him. Heartbroken, he went to leave and discovered his car had been stolen in broad daylight right next to her dorm.

After calling the cops and waiting hours for a friend to pick him up, he had to go back and ask his ex if he could wait in her dorm until his ride showed up.

The Dealership Scam

A used Buick Enclave on a dealership lot, eight or nine years old, 150k miles, nothing special. A guy called from out of town saying he wanted to send someone to inspect it. Not unusual. The "inspector" showed up the next day, seemed normal. The salesperson didn't ask for ID. First mistake.

It was pouring rain so they had the car waiting in the service lane. The inspector started looking at it. The salesperson had to deliver another car and left him alone. Second mistake.

Came back and the inspector and the Enclave were both gone. Figured he was test driving it. Half an hour later, still gone. Called him and the "customer" multiple times, no answer. Called the police. That was the last anyone heard of that Enclave. Fake names, burner phones. Someone went through an elaborate scheme to steal a worn-out family hauler.

Inside Job at the Hummer Dealer

A dealership selling Hummer H2s and H3s from 2002 to 2007 kept having vehicles disappear from the lot. They were parked in a row along a highway. One or two would just vanish every few months. They started pulling key fuses from every vehicle. Salespeople walked around with packs of fuses to pop back in whenever they showed a car.

Trucks kept disappearing anyway.

A dealership down the street got hit for wheels on over 40 vehicles in one night. Some cars were lying on asphalt, others propped on cinder blocks, some missing one wheel, others missing three. Police increased patrols. Trucks at the Hummer dealer still kept vanishing.

During the increased surveillance, cops kept running into the same employee hanging around the lot after his shift. They connected the dots. He eventually pleaded guilty to stealing two vehicles but was likely involved in more. He allegedly got $6,000 per vehicle.