The wee hours of Tuesday morning saw the latest chapter in the saga of brand new cars being stolen from the factories they were built in. According to Fox 2 Detroit, around a dozen Ford Mustangs and at least two new Jeep Wagoneers were stolen from outside the Michigan plants they were built in.
Right now, police aren’t sure if the two crimes are related. They have already recovered two of the Mustangs. The outlet says they were taken from a parking lot across the street from the Flat Rock Assembly Plant. At this point, no one is in custody.
“It’s not an isolated incident. I’m sure these teams have been arranged, probably have a decent leadership, they know where they’re going, they know where the easier targets are,” Woodhaven Deputy Police Chief Jeffrey Brust told Fox 2.
Police don’t suspect these incidents were an inside job, as cool as that would be.
Fox 2 says the Wagoneers were taken from Stellantis’ Warren Truck Assembly Plant. It’s about 30 miles away from the Mustang factory. Later on Tuesday morning, two of the trucks were recovered, but it’s not clear if that was all of them.
“We’re looking at five or six vehicles at least, and they were the high-priced Wagoneers,” Warren Police Commissioner Bill Dwyer told Fox 2. “When the guard came out he started to close the gate, they smashed the gate and luckily he wasn’t seriously injured.”
Like I said earlier, this is just the latest incident of vehicles being stolen from right outside the factory they were built in.
In the past year alone, we’ve reported on a handful of such incidents including:
- A Handful of Mustang GT500s were stolen from the same Flat Rock factory
- Seven Chevy Camaros being stolen from a GM factory that ended in a car chase
- $1 million worth of Ford Raptors and half a dozen Mustangs were taken
- Even more Ford Raptors were stolen, and a helicopter had to help in the recovery
- My personal favorite: Preteens were caught trying to steal Hellcats from a Dodge factory
I’m as big a fan of Nick Cage’s Gone in 60 Seconds as anyone, but even I have to admit this is getting a little bit silly. These cars almost always turn up, even if they are in rough shape. For now, we’ll just have to assume the architect of the heist did this right before they sprang into action.