IIHS-HLDI Report: Thieves target Camaro ZL1

The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 is at the top of the list of America’s most-stolen vehicles, while a software upgrade helped reduce theft rates for Hyundai and Kia vehicles, according to new research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Highway Loss Data Institute. 

The Camaro ZL1 and the regular Camaro account for two of the five most-stolen model year 2022-24 vehicles. Relative to its numbers on the roads, the Camaro ZL1 had a whole-vehicle theft rate 39 times the average for all vehicles. The frequency of whole-vehicle theft claims for the standard Camaro was 13 times as high as the average. 

“Muscle cars have often topped this list, as thieves are attracted to vehicles with high horsepower,” said Matt Moore, chief insurance operations officer at IIHS-HLDI. “That also helps explain why the more expensive, more powerful ZL1 is stolen so much more often than the standard Camaro.” 

On top of the high horsepower that makes the Camaro an attractive target, a technical glitch seems to have created new opportunities for thieves to steal it, according to news reports. 

Along with the two Camaro variants, pickup trucks and other expensive or high-horsepower models dominate the list of the top 20 vehicles with the highest claim frequencies for whole-vehicle theft. 

On the other end of the spectrum, the 20 least-stolen vehicles include eight electric vehicles and two plug-in hybrids, all of which have whole-vehicle theft claim frequencies that are more than 85% lower than the all-vehicle average. As past HLDI studies have noted, electric vehicles are likely to be garaged or parked near buildings to facilitate charging, making them less attractive to thieves. 

Thieves can steal modern vehicles by cloning the owner’s key fob with an electronic device. Ordinarily, they need access to the fob to copy it, but some media outlets have reported that thieves are able to clone the key code for newer Camaros by accessing the on-board ports that technicians use to retrieve diagnostic codes and monitor data about fuel economy, emissions, and other aspects of performance. 

Most theft claims don’t indicate whether the entire vehicle or just some components or vehicle contents were stolen. For its ranking of the most-stolen vehicles, HLDI identifies whole-vehicle thefts by comparing the dollar amounts of theft claims with what insurers pay for the same vehicles when they’re totaled in a crash. 

HLDI delved deeper into the situation with a separate analysis of Camaro theft claims for model years 2010-24. The full report is available here.