Corvette Stolen Off the Lot Gets a Wild Road Test

Something just didn’t seem right about the well-dressed young man who wandered into DeLillo Chevrolet on Friday night and began haggling over the price of a new Corvette.

But Philip Hodousek, a salesman at the Beach Boulevard auto dealership, couldn’t put his finger on it.

Maybe it was the studied Newport Beach casual clothes that seemed to contrast with the man’s thick Southern accent. Maybe it was the exaggerated way he looked at his Rolex watch when he chatted with salesmen.

Whatever it was, Hodousek said, he was not the least bit surprised to look up to the sound of screeching tires to see the man jockey a 1989 jet-black Corvette off the lot and out of sight.

“One, two and this guy was gone” with a loaded $37,000 automobile, Hodousek said from the dealership Saturday morning.

The suspect led as many as eight squad cars on a wild, 15-minute chase through Huntington Beach, passing through residential and commercial streets in a wide circular path that ended three blocks from where the chase started, Sgt. Lloyd Edwards said.

Within seconds of the 8:15 p.m. car theft, Hodousek was on the phone giving police a description of the man and the car.

Responding to the stolen car report, Officer Carrie Drayer spotted the Corvette at the corner of Golden West Street and Ellis Avenue and tried to pull the driver over. Instead, Edwards said, he sped away.

He then worked his way along the western half of the city, exceeding 100 m.p.h., as patrol cars and a police helicopter fought to keep up with him. The Corvette wound its way north to Slater Avenue, south to Pacific Coast Highway and north along Beach Boulevard, Police Lt. Roger Parker said.

At one point in the chase, the Corvette sideswiped a patrol car and evaded two roadblocks that were set up along Beach Boulevard, Parker said. Beach Boulevard was closed temporarily when it became apparent that the Corvette was heading back to that street.

The driver was driving so erratically that “he might have gotten away if it wasn’t for the helicopter,” Parker said.

The chase ended when the Corvette rammed a $45,000, 1986 Mercedes-Benz, parked in front of a condominium complex on Beach Boulevard, near Adams Avenue. The suspect, 25-year-old Christopher Johnson, had to be subdued by three officers when he began to scuffle with them, Parker said.

He was taken to a local hospital for treatment of scrapes and bruises. Johnson was arrested on suspicion of auto theft, evading arrest and assault on a police officer.

He was being held at the Huntington Beach police station on an undetermined amount of bail, Parker said. Police had not determined where Johnson lived.

Salesmen who had talked to the suspect said that he claimed to be from Alabama, saying he had moved to the West Coast six months ago.

“He really looked like a Newport Beach kid, though,” Hodousek said.

For about an hour, Hodousek said, Johnson wandered around the showroom, chatting nonchalantly with salesmen and telling them that he had $8,000 in cash for the car. He had only to wait for his father to arrive with the rest of the down payment, he told the salesmen.

Several times, he used the dealership’s phone, ostensibly to check on his father, Hodousek said.

“He had the pink polo shirt, the nice designer jeans, everything,” Hodousek said. “But I think the Rolex watch was a fake. He was a smooth operator, but after seven years of selling cars and working with people, I saw him as a fake.”

Earlier, Johnson had persuaded the car salesman to wheel the Corvette out from the showroom to the lot but declined to take a test drive.

“He kept saying he was waiting for his father,” Hodousek said.

Then, acting bored, Johnson asked if he could look under the hood, Hodousek said. Taking the keys, he unlocked the car door, jumped in and sped off, according to Hodousek.

It was the second time in two months that a car was stolen from that lot, Sales Manager Dale Schoof said.

The last car that was stolen, a red Camaro, was returned when Anaheim police called the dealership to ask them about a Camaro that had been left at another dealer for repairs. The vehicle identification number matched that of the stolen car.