The Car Thief is the 1972 debut novel by Theodore Weesner.

[2][3] The Car Thief is about a juvenile delinquent living in Flint, Michigan, in 1959.

Kirkus Reviews wrote that it was "a splinter-sharp and wincingly realistic first novel which encroaches steadily on the reader before it shafts him altogether.

"[6] The New York Times gave it a rave, calling a scene near the end of the book "one of the most profoundly powerful in American fiction.

"[7] The Car Thief won the Great Lakes Colleges Association's New Writers Award.