The Chevy Camaro ZL1 Is The Most Stolen Vehicle In America!

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t shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise, but the Chevy Camaro muscle car tops the chart of most stolen vehicles in America for the 2022 to ’24 model years. According to the fine folks at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), this bow tie bruiser takes not one, but two of the top five spots on this list.

The mega-potent Camaro ZL1 – which is motivated by a supercharged 6.2-liter LT4 V8 that’s good for a staggering 650 horsepower and an equal amount of torque – is the most stolen vehicle in ‘Murica, with a relative claim frequency of 3,949, a staggering 39 times the average, which is just 100. The all-wheel-drive Acura TLX was the No. 2 finisher, with a relative claim frequency of 2,138, though the non-ZL1 Camaro comes in third place at 1,287, 13 times the average. The GMC Sierra 2500 comes next, followed by the front-drive TLX in fifth place.

Like the Camaro and TLX, other high-end vehicles populate the upper echelons of this list. The Silverado 3500 is frequently stolen, as is the Dodge Durango, Range Rover luxury SUV and a couple Ram truck models.

n recent years, Hyundais and Kias have been huge targets for theft, but software updates have helped reduce this problem. “Muscle cars have often topped this list, as thieves are attracted to vehicles with high horsepower,” explained Matt Moore, the chief insurance operations officer at HLDI and IIHS in a media release. “That also helps explain why the more expensive, more powerful ZL1 is stolen so much more often than the standard Camaro.” If you’re going to go to the trouble of nabbing a car, make it a nice one that’s worth the effort, right? Or maybe wrong, since theft is generally considered to be bad, but you do you.

Aside from all that, scofflaws have figured out how to exploit a technical glitch in this performance-focused Chevy. Reportedly, they can relatively easily clone the key fob by plugging into the data port on these cars. And once you have a copy of the key, it’s not terribly difficult to drive off into the sunset.

Last year, California had the highest theft claim frequency for the Camaro. This was followed by Tennessee, Mississippi, Maryland and Texas, so be on the lookout if you live in any of these states. To help reduce the incidence of Camaro thefts, GM pushed out a software update starting back in March, basically the same thing Hyundai and Kia did to help prevent their vehicles from getting stolen. This service campaign should correct the Camaro’s data port exploit, greatly complicating the theft process.