Thieves Steal Hellcats From Pennsylvania Dealership

This is still a huge problem.

For years now, car thieves have been targeting dealerships in the middle of the night, usually taking the most high-value vehicles on the lot or sitting in the showroom. One favorite target is any Dodge Hellcat. A dealership in Montour County, Pennsylvania has learned this lesson the hard way twice now, the second time with thieves getting around their additional security measures.

Watch a stolen Hellcat get ambushed by police.

According to WNEP, police say at least four people broke into the detailing garage of the dealership by smashing a window. While definitely not a sophisticated method, that allowed them to take a 2020 Dodge Charger Scat Pack, a 2021 Dodge Durango Hellcat, and a 2023 Ram TRX. Two of those vehicles use the venerable and highly sought-after Hellcat Hemi V8.

According to a dealership employee, the theft set the business back about $300,000. That’s quite the hit but these cars command a hefty price on the market, especially since it was leaked that Dodge would drop high-powered V8 engines starting with the 2023 model year.

Thieves had hit the same dealership a few months before. Reportedly, state police counseled the business to bring its high-performance vehicles inside at night, a measure which supposedly would stop exactly what happened recently.

Now state police reportedly are telling the dealership to step up its security measures further. We’d say that’s great advice all dealers should follow. It’s amazing to us how many car thieves just smash a window, break through a pathetic lock, and have instant access to the keys for every vehicle on the property.

Like kids in a candy shop, these thieves select the cars they think will bring them the most profit and just drive off into the night with them. Many times they’re never caught. It’s a real problem that many dealerships seem to either not be aware of or unwilling to do much to prevent, something we admittedly don’t really understand.

Funny enough, in this case dealership employees believe the thieves were looking to steal two other cars as well. But those had manual transmissions, the ultimate anti-theft device.