In 2025, stealing cars off the street is so passé. Enterprising thieves are getting creative, heading to dealerships and even factories to score brand-new vehicles before they ever reach customers. Case in point is this Hummer heist gone wrong in Detroit last month.
This story comes to us from Metro Detroit News, which captured the aftermath of the incident in Michigan last month. In a video shared on YouTube, we see a pair of stricken GMC Hummer EVs. One is stranded on the tracks, while the other hangs halfway out the back of a train car, heavily damaged from its fall to the ground.
According to the news outlet, thieves gained access to a logistics facility at GM’s Factory Zero in Detroit on May 20. It’s alleged that the individuals were able to break into the train, which was loaded with freshly-built vehicles due to be shipped out of the lot. However, the plan quickly went awry due to the difficult terrain.
The first Hummer EV appears to have made it some ways out of the train, only to get stuck on the tracks themselves. This appears to be due to the passenger-side front tire having come off the rim. The truck may have also bottomed out on the steel rails.
The second Hummer EV fared far worse. It appears to have suffered a hard impact when it dove into the ground nose-first upon exiting the train carriage. The front fender is heavily damaged, and the passenger-side front tire has come off the rim, leaving the vehicle stuck half in the train and half on the tracks.
There is no evidence that any ramps or other gear was used to help unload the 9,000-pound trucks from the train itself. Instead, it appears the would-be thieves attempted to drive straight out of the train car and onto the railway. While the Hummer EV has a lot off-road prowess, the steep ballast, railway ties, and tall steel rails are unforgiving terrain for the vast majority of vehicles out there. It’s presently unclear how the thieves were able to start the vehicles to attempt their escape.
Unfortunately for American automakers, this sort of thing happens now and then at auto plants across the nation. Indeed, it was only December when Metro Detroit News was covering the case of multiple Cadillac Escalades being stolen directly from a storage lot. Click on Detroit covered a spate of similar crimes back in 2022.
There’s very little good in this story for GM. Beyond the damage to two new Hummer EVs, there’s also the sting that the factory and rail areas were not better secured. Beyond that, it doesn’t present the product in the best light. We’d all love to imagine the Hummer EV bounding across an industrial railyard in some kind of crazy action movie, but the reality is that almost no vehicle is going to get dropped off a train onto tracks and survive outside of a Fast & Furious film.
Image credits: Metro Detroit News via YouTube screenshot
Does the Hummer have T-tops? Looks like a 3 piece glass roof. Kind of unusual.
Sorta does.
Huh. Thank you for helping me find that out without getting targeted ads for $100k SUV’s.
Suspensions lowered for transport. Possibly with blocks/locks installed. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.
Gone in 60 S̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶s̶ M̶i̶n̶u̶t̶e̶s̶ H̶o̶u̶r̶s̶. Oh hell, let’s just get out of here.
“but the reality is that almost no vehicle is going to get dropped off a train onto tracks and survive outside of a Fast & Furious film.”
Its obvious that everything was going fine with the heist, but then the thieves got hit with that pesky “Danger to Manifold!” warning and it all fell apart.
The thieves obviously didn’t get a big enough head of steam before jumping off the car. I guess they had a one track mind.
They’re getting coal for Christmas.
You have had some serious training to make continuous puns like that and not go off the rails
What can I say, this site is a great platform to learn from the best.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must depart.
I’m sure they could be glued back together again. Right? Right? Like Hummer Dumpty?
Likely, they’ll be totaled due to lack of parts, because taking one fender off the assembly line will cause the entire operation to collapse
I can only imagine that all 9200 pounds of Hummer EV hitting the ground from the height of a railcar deck may have compromised the front tires of the one that got partway down the track. And the other was probably a victim of “failure to launch” as it probably didn’t clear the coupler of the railcar and got hung up. The thieves are probably lucky that neither vehicle’s battery pack got punctured; that could have resulted in the Hummers being “hot” in more ways than one…
Shenanigans with cars on railroad tracks tend to end badly, although I can relate one story where it worked out, starring the unstoppable Land Rover Discovery I that used to be our family hauler —
Wife called me at work, flustered that she was likely to be late for an appointment because she’d been stuck in a traffic jam on a rural New England road about a quarter mile away from a railroad crossing, for nearly half an hour. There was road work being done at the crossing, but the contracted workers directing traffic had inexplicably snarled everything up so that traffic was at a complete standstill, and somehow they’d gotten their equipment stuck in the mess as well. (I’m still unclear how they’d managed to gridlock a two-lane road so thoroughly; it was just an epic fail.) Anyhow the railroad crossing shouldn’t even have been much of a complication because the tracks weren’t used for revenue traffic; the only things that moved on it were weekend excursions on hand-cars and two-man “speeders” and the occasional tourist special in the fall. It was a weekday in the middle of summer, so there was absolutely no rail traffic to contend with.
I had my wife describe exactly where she was, as I hatched a suggestion. “The tracks are just to your right, down the embankment, and there’s a partial service road that picks up near the crossing. And you have a Land Rover…” I told her. The light bulb came on — and she took off down the embankment (too steep for a car, but child’s play for any decent 4×4), eased over the tracks and straddled one rail for a ways while befuddled drivers stuck in the jam looked on, and then slowed and popped over the rail one more time to get onto the service road and turn off onto the regular road in the clear lane on the other side of the crossing, where the construction workers cheered her on and made gestures toward the traffic-directors who were still completely at a loss on how to break up the mess.
The Disco handled the whole thing without a sweat; it didn’t even need low range to pick its way across the tracks. Long-travel suspension, nothing that hangs below the diffs, and relatively light weight make all the difference.
When I was a kid I drove my squarebody Chevy on 35’s across the tracks in a similar manner. I wasn’t avoiding traffic, just looking for trails and there was a service road a little way down the tracks that looked interesting.
It handled it fine, but in retrospect that wasn’t a very smart thing to do as that was a somewhat busy section of track.
Throw Humma from the Train
/RIP Anne Ramsey
COTD
OK, lets say they somehow got em off the train and the trucks still worked, WTH is the next move? Profit?
Just breaking down those batt packs would yield some serious dollars.
They should consider the simpler path of getting entry-level union jobs at the Factory Zero plant. Decent wage with room to grow, and benefits as well. Only bummer is that you have to show up for work. Some folks don’t have time for that
Break them down for parts or stick them in a shipping container heading to Mexico or Nigeria
Almost surprised I haven’t seen a comment about how the wheel/tire combo should have been beadlocks to prevent the tire separation from the wheel. Mildly disappointed. But it’s always great when dumb thieves don’t get away with their ill gotten goods
Factory beadlocks on a vehicle that will only, lets be honest, see asphalt?
Oh I know there might be like one weirdo out there that will actually try to do real off-roading in their hulking electric Hummer. Otherwise yeah a pavement princess dressed up as a off-road toy
Beadlocks are not typically DOT legal. Sometimes “beadlock capable” wheels are an option, but they’re not set up that way from the factory.
Ooooh. That little bit of info I did not know. Thank you for that. I tend to come here for the articles and both some quality, and quality entertainment within the comments. If I can learn something I previously didn’t know all the better. Article authors on this site and lots of commenters seem to be real good for being quite knowledgeable.
Next time go for the train load of CJ and XJ Jeeps.
Unfortunately this was not just like the simulations (GTA Online)
The keys were almost certainly in the vehicles, because they’d get lost in transit otherwise.
Amateurs didn’t do their research. There’s an episode of Banacek that shows how to properly steal a car from a train.
I’m curious about what type of “vehicle” was used to remove the Bummers?
If you mean to clear the tracks again, probably just a track crane.
Thanks, I guess I was too stoney to think of that.
lol. Yeah, 9000 lbs is baby shit for those bad boys.
Eh, nothing of value was lost.
“Why did you turn? Why the f*ck did you turn?”
Getting a Hummer in a railyard is no way to go through life, son.
“In short, the theft was successful and now the thieves are stuck with a bunch of Hummers.”
Heavy industrial equipment 2, EVs 0
No doubt the thieves will claim they were railroaded.
One might say they’ll learn the real meaning of “train” once they’re locked up.
It was all in vain.
I’m sure the thieves were just down on their luck in this economy, and stealing from a big corporation like GM isn’t really theft anyways, right? (iykyk)
Rioting 101.
That was the point when I realized the site had gone off the rails. Pun entirely intended.
These thieves must have watched too many action movies, where cars can jump and fall off things and continue like nothing has happened.
I grew up watching Dukes and Knight Rider and in HS I had a black sportscar so with all my 16 years of knowledge and experience I thought jumping my car over some railroad track was a totally logical thing to do. I barely got 4″ off the ground and broke my upper strut mount.
Younger self would jump motorcycles over rail tracks. The best ones were those that created a minor plateau as they crossed an uphill road – allowing you to have the nose of the bike already pointed upwards as you jump them and get some air. I’m quite certain, however, that whatever measurable airtime I felt would have looked disappointing to a casual viewer.
Oh from inside the car I felt like I’d just jumped the ravine in Smoky and the Bandit but my friends outside the car said it was only a few inches of air between my tires and the pavement.
We had what the brits woudl call a “level crossing” that was actually a very nice ramp up to the tracks on both sides, we jumped every vehicle we had acces to over that thing. My 88 Sami, a Pontiac 6000 Wagon, a junky Trans Am, an 85 Monte Carolo SS, a Cavalier Convertible….
My father used to do X-ray on the lucky survivors and forensic X-ray on the not so lucky when they jumped roads or crossings and discovered trains, trucks and automobiles where unyielding and unstoppable.
I did not envy those parts of his career.
A ’71 Fiat 128 jumps just fine and lands on the level. An ’80 Vanagon Westfalia also gets air well also.
Interesting you know this.
It can cause fatigue to the rear spring though.
Nothing of value was lost
Wow, with an modern EV, would not GM be able to track any stolen ones. Also, I would think with some attention to what you are doing train tracks in a big truck should not be a problem.
I was looking to say this as well.
They were “tracked.” That’s clearly evident from the pictures.
A Hummer is definitely not a good choice for a track day.
COTD
Considering this community I have a feeling this low hanging fruit will be one upped repeatedly before day’s end. Some clever Autopian will undoubtedly write a whole weird al song off the top of their head or come up with some insanely creative poem or limerick or something.
There once was a quip that came early
Some wit without being too surly
The pun was spot on
We scrolled and it’s gone
The commenting interface could use a little work with perhaps the oldest comments or the most liked comments automatically moving to the top.
Sorry, got nothing.
Damn you Ash78! Foiled again!
P.S. if you click the fire icon at the top of the comments section it reorganizes them to most active/replied/smilied
Another mysterious icon explained!
I came for the rhymes but stayed for the message.
After a year and a half of obsessive reading and refreshing, I still have no idea what the “natural” order of comments is on this site (vs using Rusty’s tips below… Above?… Nearby)
I pretty much end up reading them all anyway.
Also not so good for tailgating a rail car.
Any shenanigans go off the rails quickly