Thieves broke into a car dealership in Kentucky Wednesday night and made off with six brand-new Dodge Challenger Hellcats. They made it out the door in under 60 seconds, which is certainly both the draw, and flaw, of the Hellcat. Don Franklin Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Somerset, Kentucky is out six Challenger Hellcats worth around $600,000. The thieves made off with four from the showroom floor. The dealership made it especially easy for them by leaving the keys inside the vehicles. Two more were taken from the exterior lot using keys found inside the dealership, WKYT reports. The dealership’s manager Adam Bryant seems to think the theft was so quick—they were gone in about 40 seconds — that it could have been an inside job: “They came in through the rear garage door. They had some kind of idea of how our security system worked it looked like,” Bryant said. Bryant believes it took at least seven people 40 seconds to drive off with all six Hellcats, each worth around $95,000. “And they were gone. Once they tripped the alarm, it takes 60 seconds before it starts alerting. They were gone 20 seconds before the alarm started to go off. The response time of the police was like three minutes. It was really good,” Bryant said. Five of the six stolen vehicles were later recovered, some in nearby counties, but one of the vehicles made it all the way to Alabama and another to Tennessee. At least one of the vehicles is a total loss. The sixth one is still missing. Bryant thinks the GPS unit was damaged somehow, but they believe it is in Alabama as well. “We have an idea of where the last one is,” Bryant told WKYT.
Here is more detailed information about the theft. Although security cameras were in the showroom (see photo and video, below), the car thieves’ faces were hidden with COVID masks. It appeared that the seven perpetrators were dropped off from across the street, and left footprints as they walked through a construction site. Some of the cars were already sold to customers and were waiting to be picked up. They all had keys inside. As of Tuesday evening, all but one of the stolen cars had been located. However, one of the Challenger Hellcats was totaled in a police pursuit wreck. The driver was arrested and is lodged in the Adair County Regional Jail. According to Kentucky State Police, a trooper in Adair County saw four of the Dodge Challenger Hellcat cars heading west at speeds of around 100 mph. When the trooper activated their lights and sirens, the Hellcats increased their speed to 180 mph. Their attempt to get away was partly successful, as the trooper soon lost sight of the cars, but troopers in Barren County spotted them still heading west at high speed. Troopers managed to take down one of the Hellcats after deploying spike strips, in the process capturing the driver and taking him into custody. So far, five of the stolen Dodge Challenger Hellcat cars have been accounted for. Two of them were picked up in Kentucky, while one was found in Tennessee and the other in Alabama. The sixth car is still unaccounted for, but police believe it’s in Alabama according to GPS data. Incredibly, back in September of last year, Don Franklin Somerset Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram suffered another theft when four Dodge Challenger Hellcats were stolen off their lot. https://twitter.com/i/status/1630666694870835210
I'm leaning toward this being an inside job. What dealer would leave the keys inside three high end Challengers overnight especially since they were hit in September 2022? Between that and ALL the news coverage this past year about dealership thefts of Dodges, what jerk would think keeping the keys in the cars was okay?
When the police deployed the tire spikes, I wonder if they had enough sense to stop, or tried to drive over them at 100+ mph?
