A 2023 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, gifted to a Maryland man for earning his third graduate degree from the University of Maryland, was stolen twice in five days. The second time, it was taken right off the AutoNation dealer lot where it sat waiting for a post-theft inspection.
The first theft happened in the early morning hours of Memorial Day. The family in Beltsville, Maryland woke to the unmistakable sound of a supercharged 650-horsepower V8 firing up in their driveway and disappearing into the night. No keys needed, apparently.
Less than 48 hours later, a viewer who had seen a News4 Washington report spotted the ZL1 parked on the side of a road in Adelphi, just 15 minutes from where it was taken. Police recovered it, processed it for evidence, and released it to the AutoNation dealership where the family had originally purchased the car. The plan was straightforward: inspect for damage, make repairs, return it to the owner.
The car never made it back.
Two days later, someone walked onto the dealer lot, climbed into the ZL1, and drove it away. An AutoNation employee watched it happen, assuming the person was a technician moving the car to the service bay. They weren’t. The Camaro rolled off the lot and vanished again.
The family’s mother, Mimi Arnett, spoke publicly after the first theft. After the second, she told Automotive News the family is done with the car. Even if it surfaces a second time, they won’t keep it. She cited both the obvious theft magnet problem and a desire for her son to drive something safer.
That desire is grounded in hard data. The Camaro ZL1 is the most stolen vehicle in America, 39 times more likely to be taken than the average car. The combination is almost too perfect for criminals: a high-value, high-demand performance car paired with a known vulnerability in its keyless entry system that lets thieves walk up and drive away as casually as if they owned it.
Chevrolet has released a software patch intended to close that security hole. Whether this particular ZL1 had received the update remains unclear. If it hadn’t, the dealer inspection that never happened might have been the moment it finally got fixed. That would be a bitter kind of irony.
The neighborhood around Beltsville has seen a rash of vehicle thefts in recent months. Residents told News4 they believe professionals are behind the crimes, based on the speed and efficiency with which cars disappear. A ZL1 sitting on a dealer lot, already flagged as a theft recovery, would be an easy score for anyone monitoring police scanners or social media.
The ZL1 went out of production after the 2024 model year when Chevrolet discontinued the Camaro entirely. That makes remaining examples more valuable on the black market and more attractive to chop shops. Every month that passes, the pool of parts cars and clean titles shrinks.
AutoNation has not publicly addressed how someone walked onto its lot and drove away a car already flagged as a theft recovery. The security failure is remarkable. A vehicle that had just been stolen, recovered by police, and handed to a dealership specifically because it needed safeguarding was treated with all the vigilance of a rental car at an airport garage.
The family wanted to celebrate an academic achievement with a serious American performance car. What they got was a graduate-level lesson in how badly the auto industry has failed to secure its own products. Three degrees earned, two thefts endured, zero confidence the car won’t disappear a third time.
They’re shopping for something else now. Hard to blame them.
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