These Are Your Top Guesses For The Car Involved In That Fatal Hit-And-Run In California. Let’s Try To Pare Them Down

Earlier this week, the Capitola Police Department asked for our help. A pedestrian had been struck and killed by a crossover SUV that fled the scene, and the trail was getting cold. Thankfully, the awesome Autopian community is full of top-notch car geeks who know their stuff, so the search for the hit and run CUV turned up several possible models. Sadly, we don’t have a definitive answer, so here, let’s have a look at our top guesses and see if we can pare them down even further.

While we still aren’t entirely sure on what the suspect vehicle is, your help narrowed it down to several possible vehicles, often with multiple shoutouts in the comments. So, here are the six most-plausible vehicles as chosen by you. Before we get to them, here are the images we have. Here are screenshots of the front and rear of the suspect’s car:

Here someone has stitched them together:

Here’s a ring camera showing the suspect’s vehicle at about 17 seconds in going from right to left:

OK, now let’s have a peek at what Autopian readers think the car is:

Genesis GV80

It shouldn’t be a huge surprise that the brand using two horizontal light elements per corner has a model on this list. After all, the taillight signature works, and the car features both a shark fin antenna and various five-spoke wheel designs. However, there’s some doubt about whether the split headlights would blend together enough to produce the right look in footage, and the car in the stills doesn’t appear to have roof rails, as the GV80’s bright silver roof rails should glint or otherwise show on camera. Oh, and the dash-to-axle ratio looks far too short to be anything on a longitudinal architecture. Mind you, given the, ahem, limitations of CCTV, it’s possible the roof rails could’ve hid in the shadows and the dash-to-axle could’ve been distorted.

2013 to 2019 Ford Escape

Lots of people are suggesting the previous-generation Ford Escape as a possible culprit, but there are a few reasons why it doesn’t seem plausible. Firstly, the base S trim that came without roof rails should’ve come with a short mast antenna. Secondly, the taillights have an illumination pattern completely at odds with the taillights in either the still shot or the video. Otherwise, this was a popular guess.

2022+ Chevrolet Traverse

Here’s another domestic crossover that people suspect could be the vehicle in the photos. Slim headlights, a base model without a roof rack, close base trim wheel designs, a somewhat boxy silhouette with a sloping nose, and the all-important shark fin antenna make this somewhat plausible. Admittedly, the taillight elements seem a bit close together, but I’ve certainly been wrong before.

2011 to 2013 Toyota Highlander

The second-generation Highlander adopted a shark fin antenna during its facelift, and you could get it without roof rails. The headlight pattern seems to work, and the taillight pattern isn’t a half-bad match, but there is the minor detail of the wheels. Since the base trim came with seven-spoke alloys, those would need to be swapped out for the Sport trim or the hybrid’s five-spoke wheels to match this description. If anything, that would make such a vehicle even more distinctive.

2020+ Land Rover Discovery Sport

This is a particularly good guess made by multiple people. Available without roof rails? Check. Horizontally-split taillights? Check. Slim LED headlights? Check. Shark fin antenna? Check. Short dash-to-axle? Check. You could even get previous model year examples with a set of split-five-spoke wheels that look pretty damn close to what’s seen in the footage. Definitely call this one plausible.

2023+ Honda Pilot

Speaking of crossovers that tick a ton of boxes, a handful of commenters have mentioned the current Honda Pilot, and it definitely seems plausible. While the front end is a bit blunt, everything else lines up well, and it’s hard to guess some cues in the stills thanks to the distortion of CCTV lenses and the way most rolling shutters work. Still, this is among the best matches so far.

John Paul Jose even put together this graphic:

That’s pretty darn convincing.

What Have We Learned?

Well, many crossovers look similar if you view them through a grainy camera feed in the dark. I’m beginning to get a sense of why Loch Ness Monster sightings are a thing. Still, your help has narrowed down the options considerably. In any case, please press on. A hit and run killer is still out there, rolling around in a car on stilts.

Let’s see if we can at least come to some kind of consensus in terms of assigning each vehicle a likelihood-of-being-the-car value.

(Photo credits: Genesis, Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, Land Rover, Honda)

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• ‘That Would Be Huge’: California Police Needs Our Help Identifying Car Involved In Deadly Hit-And-Run (UPDATED)

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