Representative image: a McLaren 720S. Photo: Matti Blume / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
A McLaren worth $500,000 was taken from the driveway behind a home in Detroit’s Boston-Edison neighborhood and later turned up in video doing donuts in front of a crowd at a street takeover, WDIV reported Monday. Owner Ali Sobh, a Detroit businessman with 1.1 million social media followers, told the station the footage bothered him more than the theft did. “Being paraded around, it’s like nobody can do nothing to us,” he said.
What the report leaves out
WDIV’s two reports (Nov. 9 and Nov. 10) don’t name the model, the model year or the date of the theft. They don’t say how the car was entered or started, whether a key or fob was involved, or whether the driveway had cameras. The $500,000 figure is the station’s, with no listing, appraisal or insurance valuation behind it. That price covers several current McLarens, so the photos here are representative and not the stolen car.
Sobh also told WDIV that his car is the only one in the country in its color. The station doesn’t say whether that is a factory shade or a special-order paint, or how he established it. We have no registry or McLaren record to check it against.
How the car was found
Sobh posted about the theft to his followers and collected tips. He passed a possible location near Six Mile and Telegraph to Detroit police, and officers recovered the car there, according to WDIV. The station doesn’t report the car’s condition, whether anyone was with it, or whether anyone has been arrested or charged. Anyone later charged is presumed innocent.
Detroit police are working to identify the people responsible, and the takeover video is now part of that investigation. Commander Phillip Rodriguez told WDIV the department wants residents to feel their property is safe. He did not say, in what the station aired, whether the video has produced a suspect.
Takeover cars have turned up in our coverage before, though usually as the vehicles police seize at the scene. In London, the Met took 90 supercars in three days and charged storage fees on a £3.7 million Ferrari. A stolen car doing donuts at a takeover leaves police with a different problem, because the person at the wheel and the person on the title are not the same. Detroit-area police have also chased stolen high-performance cars before, as in this chase of stolen muscle cars that ended in two crashes. McLarens have drawn other crimes too: someone firebombed one outside a Birmingham wedding in August.
Sobh says he plans to add security at the house. Police haven’t announced arrests, and the next filing to watch is a Detroit Police Department incident report or a charging document, neither of which WDIV cited.
Should the people who filmed and cheered at a takeover where a stolen car was doing donuts face charges alongside the driver?
Sources: WDIV/ClickOnDetroit reports, Nov. 9 and Nov. 10, 2026. Images: Wikimedia Commons.
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