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Car-Theft Syndicate In Spain Caught With Over 20 Homologation Specials Resembles Real-Life ‘Gone In 60 Seconds’

We’ve likely all seen “Gone In 60 Seconds,” where a young Nic Cage and distracting Angelina Jolie have to steal a whole boatload of exotic cars in one night. If you haven’t… go watch it. Well, authorities in Spain have discovered a wild car-theft syndicate, and the details are as close to the film as real life can get.

From the police prospective, they were investigating the theft of a 3-ton generator from a construction site. The generator had been stolen with the use of a heavy-duty truck and crane. When they went to investigate a potential suspect, the found the crane, and then a warehouse full of cars. Not just any cars, but 26 homologation specials.

Homologation specials were vehicles made by companies in the 70s – 80s to qualify for certain rally and touring race series. For example, if Lancia wanted to enter their Stratos into competition, they had to prove to race officials that it wasn’t just a racecar, and that they in fact made a certain number of road-legal examples to sell to the public. These examples were homologation cars.

Understandably, these were pretty desirable and rare cars. So then you can see how insane it is that 26 of them, which had been stolen from all over Europe, were all parked in this one criminal’s warehouse. Many had their VIN numbers changed as well.

Additionally, police found a thick bundles of euros wrapped in plastic, and a couple of handguns with a bunch of ammunition (not pictured).

The irony of getting caught not because of these car thefts, but because of some construction equipment, would make this perfect inspiration for the big screen.  Who would you cast as the leads if making this movie today? Remember, they would need a sense of edginess, perhaps Die Antwoord?

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