Dodge once said its free anti-theft software would help keep stolen muscle cars out of police chases. The list of cars that got it skipped the 2018 Scat Pack. At about 2:29 a.m. on July 2, 2023, Georgia State Patrol Trooper Mathews spotted a blue 2018 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack that Atlanta police had reported stolen earlier that night, northbound on Peachtree Road at West Wesley Road in Atlanta. That is his account, from the pursuit narrative published with his dashcam video. The chase ended in a Cobb County neighborhood with the Challenger missing a wheel, and according to the report, the three people who ran from it were never found.That footage is now making the rounds as "2 Teens Hit INSANE Speeds in Scat Pack Chase!" The upload, posted June 12, 2026, by a channel called GCBC, had 129,545 views when I checked it Monday, under a thumbnail with a speedometer reading 176 mph. The trooper's narrative backs neither the ages nor the number. It describes the occupants only as young men, gives no speeds, and records no arrest, so nobody's age is on record.In 2021, Dodge rolled out free software that it said would cut a stolen muscle car to less than 3 horsepower and prevent "high-speed chases of stolen vehicles." Its list of eligible Scat Packs started with the 2019 model year. The car in this chase was a 2018.What the trooper's report says happenedAccording to the narrative, the Challenger turned left onto West Wesley Road and accelerated as soon as the trooper got behind it. It ran west on West Wesley, then south on Moores Mill Road, where a passenger jumped out of the moving car. The driver kept going south to Marietta Boulevard, turned west and crossed into Cobb County.On Atlanta Road, the trooper tried two PIT maneuvers, the push on a fleeing car's rear quarter meant to spin it out. The first did not stop the car. On the radio, the trooper reported that the Challenger had lost a wheel, and later that it was still running on three wheels. It kept crabbing along like that long enough that he told dispatch he wasn't sure his own cruiser would hold out. After the second PIT, the report says, the Challenger stopped abruptly and three occupants ran into a neighborhood at Westwood Road, jumping fences into backyards.Other troopers and Cobb County police set up a perimeter and brought in a K9 team. They found clothing and a backpack holding what the report calls items consistent with vehicle thefts. They did not find the people. The trooper wrote that the Challenger held multiple stolen items, firearms and illegal narcotics. Barrow Towing impounded it, with a 10-day hold so Atlanta police detectives could process it.The narrative is the version State Boyzzz posted with the video; the channel regularly posts Georgia State Patrol footage, often with the matching reports. I could not find an agency copy of the report online, and the account above is the trooper's alone. The narrative does not say whether the passenger who jumped out was ever located.The PIT rule Georgia troopers work underThe Georgia Department of Public Safety's pursuit policy, No. 17.02, in the version on the department's website revised May 15, 2019, allows a PIT when troopers decide a fleeing vehicle "must be stopped immediately to safeguard life and preserve public safety." It says the maneuver should not be used until tire-deflation devices and roadblocks have been considered and ruled out. Among the factors a trooper is supposed to weigh first are darkness, roadside obstructions such as trees and ditches, and the number of people in the car.The same policy tells troopers deciding whether to chase at all to consider "the probability of the suspect's arrest at a later date," and states flatly that "every violator will not be apprehended." Here the PITs left a 392-cubic-inch Scat Pack on three wheels, and after the second one it stopped. A stopped car is as far as the maneuver goes; it could not keep three people from going over a fence, and the trooper recovered a stolen car and no suspects.Dodge's free anti-theft fix, and the year it left outOn March 22, 2021, Dodge announced a free software update for its HEMI muscle cars. Once the owner sets a four-digit code, the update limits the engine to idle, 675 rpm, which Dodge said works out to about 2.8 horsepower and 22 lb-ft of torque. Tim Kuniskis, then the brand's CEO, said in the release that it would limit output to less than 3 horsepower, "foiling fast getaways and joyrides." The release went further and claimed "a secondary public safety benefit by preventing criminal police evasion and high-speed chases of stolen vehicles."The eligibility paragraph is where the 2018 owner falls out. Dodge told owners of 2015 through 2021 Challenger SRT and Charger SRT models with the 392 or the supercharged 6.2-liter to book a free install, "as well as owners of 2019-2021 Scat Packs equipped with 392-cu.-in HEMI V-8 engines." A 2018 Scat Pack has the same 392. The release says the feature runs through the Uconnect 4C infotainment system and does not explain the cutoff.A 2017 Challenger R/T Scat Pack, the same generation as the stolen 2018 car. Photo: MercurySable99 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Five months later, on Aug. 13, 2021, Dodge announced three more measures. An enhanced valet mode with the same sub-3-horsepower limit was free, but only for 2021 models. A Key Programming Lockdown, meant to stop thieves from programming new key fobs after breaking in, was set to begin rolling out in the first quarter of 2022 for 2015-to-current Challengers and Chargers with any engine, which does take in the 2018. An intrusion module that trips the alarm on glass breakage or movement went on all 2022 models.Then, on April 25, 2025, Dodge's Direct Connection parts brand introduced the Start Defender, a starting-circuit interrupt that won't let the car start until the owner enters a button sequence. It fits 2018 to 2023 Challengers and Chargers and carries a $695 MSRP. The first model year the paid box covers is the one year of Scat Pack the free engine limiter skipped.Nothing in the trooper's report says how this Challenger was stolen, whether its owner had the key lockdown, or whether any of these fixes would have stopped the theft. The engine limiter works only if the owner has set it up and turned it on. What the releases do establish is Dodge's own claim that its software keeps stolen muscle cars out of police chases, and the line it drew around which cars got that software for free. Once a company pitches an update on public safety, the model-year cutoff is a public safety decision too, and Dodge owed 2018 Scat Pack owners either the update or an explanation.How often Challengers get stolenEight weeks after this chase, on Aug. 31, 2023, the Highway Loss Data Institute published its list of vehicles with the highest whole-vehicle theft claim frequencies for 2020-22 models. On a scale where 100 is the average vehicle, the Challenger scored 766, fourth on the list. The Charger SRT Hellcat scored 6,128 and the Charger HEMI 2,197. Those figures come from insurance claims and cover newer cars than the 2018 here, but they show where thieves were aiming that summer. HLDI's Matt Moore said in an August 2025 release that thieves "are attracted to vehicles with high horsepower."This isn't the first stolen Challenger to run from police. One in Alabama finished its run in a golf course pond.What happens next, and what the law saysThe trooper's report records no arrest, and no one in the car has been publicly identified. If someone were identified and charged, Georgia's fleeing-and-eluding statute, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-395, makes fleeing a felony when the driver, among other things, goes more than 20 mph over the posted limit or flees in traffic conditions that put the public at risk of serious injury. That felony carries a fine of $5,000 to $10,000 and one to 10 years in prison.The deadline is not close, either. Georgia generally gives prosecutors four years to bring most felony charges, which would have put the deadline in July 2027. But O.C.G.A. § 17-3-2 excludes any period in which "the person committing the crime is unknown." As long as the people who ran from this Challenger stay unidentified, the clock on this chase is not running.For owners of 2018 Challenger and Charger Scat Packs, Dodge's own releases lay out the options. The free engine-limiting Security Mode list begins with 2019 Scat Packs. The Key Programming Lockdown was announced for 2015-and-newer cars with any engine. The Start Defender covers 2018 through 2023 and lists at $695.Dodge said its free software would prevent police chases of stolen cars. When an automaker makes that claim, should it get to decide on its own which model years are worth covering?The post Dodge Said Its Free Anti-Theft Update Would Prevent Police Chases of Stolen Muscle Cars. It Skipped the 2018 Scat Pack, and One Ran From a Georgia Trooper on Three Wheels. appeared first on The Auto Wire.
+17 others
