It looks like car thieves have found a new target. They seem to be moving on from Hyundais and Kias.
So do you have to worry about your ride?
Spoiler alert: If you’re a fan of muscle cars, you might want to be extra vigilant.
Matt Moore, an expert with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, joined WTOP’s John Aaron and Michelle Basch on Thursday to explain which cars are the current hot targets.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Matt Moore: The Chevy Camaro — two versions of the Camaro — occupy the No. 1 and No. 3 spot, the ZL one version of the Camaro, which is the most powerful, the most expensive version, is sort of head and shoulders above the rest of the vehicles at about 39 times the all vehicle theft average, while the base version of the Camaro sits at number three on the list, at about 13 times the all vehicle average.
John Aaron: So why Camaros? Is there like a glitch going on here?
Matt Moore: So part of it, I think, is the combination of both desirability of a vehicle to thieves and also vulnerability or opportunity. And in the case of these Camaros, it turns out, with a little bit of know how and a little bit of technology, if you can get inside the vehicle, it can be stolen fairly easily.
Michelle Basch: What other vehicles are being targeted by thieves the most?
Matt Moore: This is the piece of the list that’s somewhat evergreen. They’re almost always powerful, pricey and pickup trucks.
John Aaron: So my old Subaru is safe for now, I think. What is the latest on those Hyundai and Kia thefts that were, of course, triggered by the TikTok videos about a security flaw on some of those vehicles? Where do we stand with that?
Matt Moore: For the most part, it’s very good news. Hyundai and Kia have issued software updates. A lot of people have gotten those updates, we’ve been able to study the updated vehicles, and the theft risk for those vehicles is reduced significantly. So if somebody has a vehicle that has that vulnerability, we highly recommend that they get the update.
Michelle Basch: Besides those, once you get the update and you’re safer, which other cars are thieves tending to stay away from?
Matt Moore: That’s an interesting thing. There are quite a few electric vehicles on the list of the least stolen vehicles. And then there’s also a few plug in hybrids and hybrid vehicles. And there is a Subaru on the list of least stolen vehicles.
John Aaron: The joke is on the thief, because they’re gonna have to fix the head gasket at some point. So jokes on them. Maryland also got singled out as a car theft hot spot in your report. Can you tell us more about that?
Matt Moore: That’s an interesting thing, in that vehicle theft varies considerably by geography, and there are some places that are regularly hot spots for vehicle theft, and Maryland is often on a list of geographies that are problem spots.
John Aaron: Any idea why that is, or is it just one of those things that shakes out in the data?
Matt Moore: If I was a vehicle thief, I’d know a lot more.
John Aaron: Is it still true that manual transmission cars don’t get stolen? Is that a way to keep people out of your car?
Matt Moore: That one’s almost impossible to answer because there are so few manual vehicles on road these days. So it’d be very difficult to say from a statistical perspective, whether or not that’s true. I can say that on it, just glancing at the top 10 and bottom 20 lists here, there’s not a single one with manual transmission.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
