A Maryland family bought their son an $80,000 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to celebrate a huge academic milestone. Within days, the 650-horsepower muscle car was stolen from their driveway, recovered by police, handed over to the dealership that sold it, and then stolen again, this time in broad daylight while an employee watched it drive away. The car has not been seen since.
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That second part is the one that should make every owner’s blood run cold. The first theft happened at a private home in the middle of the night. The second one happened on a dealership lot, the kind of place a car is supposed to be safe.
A Graduation Gift Turns Into a Nightmare
Mimi Arnett and her son’s father purchased the 2023 Camaro ZL1 as a graduation present after their son earned his third graduate degree from the University of Maryland. The car was parked at the family’s home in Beltsville, Maryland.
At 3 in the morning on May 25, Arnett heard the supercharged LT4 engine fire up outside. Her son was asleep in his room. The Camaro was already on its way out of the driveway with someone else behind the wheel.
For one day, the story looked like it might have a happy ending. The car was found the very next day, and the only damage was a broken window. Considering what usually happens to stolen performance cars, the family got off easy. Or so it seemed.
The Recovery That Didn’t Stick
After the Camaro was recovered, it went to the police station, where it was processed for fingerprints and DNA evidence. Once that was done, the car was taken to the AutoNation dealership where the family originally bought it, with an inspection planned. That handoff happened on May 27.
Two days later, Arnett’s phone rang. It was AutoNation, and they were asking her where the car was. She told them the car was still with them. According to Arnett, the dealership then informed her that they had searched the entire lot and the Camaro was gone. Stolen again.
Here’s the part that matters. This theft did not happen under the cover of darkness. The car was reportedly driven off the lot in broad daylight, and a dealership employee allegedly watched it happen. According to Arnett, the employee assumed the person climbing into the Camaro was a dealership technician pulling it into the garage for its inspection. Instead, the thief drove the car off the property, and it has not surfaced since.
A Car Thieves Cannot Leave Alone
This is where the story turns from bad luck into a pattern. A 2025 report from the Highway Loss Data Institute found that the Camaro ZL1 carries a whole-vehicle theft rate 39 times higher than the average for all vehicles in the United States. That is not a slightly elevated risk. That is a car with a target painted on its hood.
The Arnett family’s experience puts a human face on that statistic. They did everything an owner is supposed to do. The car was at home the first time. The second time, it was sitting at a franchised dealership awaiting an inspection tied to the original theft. The thieves got it anyway, twice, in the span of a week.
The Family Is Done
Arnett has made her decision, and it is hard to argue with it. She says she does not want her son driving the Camaro anymore, even if police manage to recover it a second time. Her reasoning is blunt: her son’s safety comes first, and the family plans to put him in a vehicle where he will be safe.
The HLDI data offers one option at the opposite end of the spectrum. The same research identifies the Tesla Model 3 as the least stolen vehicle in the country. It is about as far from a supercharged muscle car as a new vehicle gets, but it comes with one feature no ZL1 can match right now: a decent chance of still being in the driveway at sunrise.
This isn’t the first time a Camaro ZL1 has ended up in the wrong hands. A stolen and recovered 2023 Camaro ZL1 previously went to auction after a turbulent ownership story, while the tow truck heist that took a customer’s Camaro with a stolen rig shows how creative thieves have become.
The hard truth here lands on more than one doorstep. A family lost an $80,000 gift twice. A dealership reportedly let a stolen-and-recovered car roll off its own lot while an employee watched. And somewhere out there, a hot ZL1 is in the wind, adding one more data point to a theft rate that already makes this car one of the riskiest things an enthusiast can park outside.
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