Thieves take nearly $1M worth of brand-new Ford pickups from factory storage lot
An estimated $1 million worth of new 2022 Ford F-150 Raptor pickup trucks were stolen from a Dearborn Truck Plant storage lot, a Dearborn, Michigan, city official confirmed to the Detroit Free Press.
Ford on June 10 reported the missing high-performance trucks, which have a base price of $69,905, with multiple calls to police during that weekend, said Bilal Baydoun, Dearborn city spokesman.
Theft of brand-new vehicles from factory lots is surprisingly common. Earlier this year, a few high-end vehicles were stolen from Stellantis lots around Detroit. In May, a Chevrolet Camaro theft from a Lansing plant led to a high-speed chase. In 2018, nearly a dozen Ram pickups were stolen in a fashion similar to this month's Ford theft.
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Police find some of the trucks, stripped and damaged
Dearborn police have recovered 13 vehicles over the last week, mostly in Detroit and a couple in Dearborn. Dearborn is immediately west of Detroit and is home to a large F-150 factory.
"There was evidence of fences being rammed," Baydoun said. "When they (trucks) were recovered, you could see signs of damage and some things were stripped away, tires, that kind of thing. They were in various states of disrepair."
One arrest has been made and the investigation remains open and active, Baydoun said.
Raptor is a more powerful F-150
The Ford F-150 Raptor is wider, taller and more powerful than the standard F-150.
Car and Driver called the F-150 Raptor an "off-road trophy truck living in an asphalt world. It wears extra-wide fenders, long-travel suspension, big tires and the high-performance demeanor of a Baja-bashing race truck."
Kelli Felker, a Ford spokeswoman, said Friday the company is cooperating with police on the investigation.
Contact Phoebe Wall Howard at 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pickup theft: $1M worth of new Ford F-150s taken from factory lot
