BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – You’ve probably seen reports suggesting that the most commonly stolen cars in America are popular models like the Chevy Silverado, Honda Civic and Toyota Camry. And that is correct, at least according to one method of tabulation. But there are two ways to count.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau reports raw numbers, which show that the most common cars are also the most commonly-stolen cars, mostly because of their availability and the heavy demand for their parts.
The Highway Loss Data Institute, however, studies the relative risk of theft for each car on the road, and its findings are very different.
According to that loss investigation organization, the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and Dodge Charger are stolen five times more frequently than the average passenger car, based on consecutive studies (2016-2018 and 2019-2021).
There aren’t a lot of Hellcats out there, and a much higher proportion of them are stolen than any other car.
In fact, of the five most-stolen models, three were big rear-wheel-drive Dodges, including the Charger Hemi V-8 and Challenger SRT.
Vicki Hampton of Bakersfield owned two of them – a 2021 maroon Hellcat and a 2018 black Challenger SRT. She lost her life this past spring trying to recover the maroon Hellcat, which thieves stole from the street in front of her home. It was bizarre end to an increasingly common problem.
Why do Hellcats and their cousins get stolen so often?
“They’re special,” Brian Moody, executive editor at Autotrader, told WLEX-TV in Lexington, Kentucky, near where six Hellcats were stolen last February from a Dodge dealership – in 40 seconds flat. “These cars are worth something, they’re high performance, and they’re in limited supply.”
It happened again more recently, and somewhat more clumsily, at a Dodge dealership in Caledonia Township, Michigan, in May. Thieves broke the window of a locked Hellcat at 4 a.m. one morning and used a computer to program a new key. Dealership owner Jordan Baker told WOOD-TV the burnt orange 2020 Hellcat, one of just 35 made in that color that year, was “just absolutely beautiful.”
The Hellcat — which retails for between $90,000 and $150,000 depending on options — is sought after primarily because of its vast power reserves. It produces as much as 717 horsepower in the Hellcat and 797 in the Hellcat Redeye, thanks to a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 engine.
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Auto theft — a $9 billion business in the U.S. alone — is a burgeoning menace. If it were legal, auto theft would rank 50th among the Fortune 500 companies, according to the FBI.
Hellcats and other newer-generation U.S. muscle cars will probably only get more desirable in coming years as automakers phase out the rumbling gas burners and transition to electric vehicles in order to meet strict government emissions and fuel economy requirements.
The internal combustion engine Dodge Challenger, Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro are all scheduled to end production in 2024, with electric versions replacing them all at some point.
