chop shop

plural chop shops · alternative chop-shop

1. USA facility where stolen motor vehicles are disassembled in order to sell their mechanical parts.

   Apparently his stolen car had been taken to a chop shop, as the police only recovered the frame.

   3 more examples

   Once the car is in a chop shop, a skilled cutter can reduce it to salable parts in half an hour to 45 minutes.

   1979, “The Car-Theft Boom”, in Newsweek, page 100

   New York City sports a number of chop shops, as do Chicago, Detroit and most other large metropolitan areas.[…]If they can′t find the right engine, the junkyard may call a chop shop contact to get someone on the street looking for the right make and year.

   1987 August 28, Ed Heney, “Outsmart the Car Thieves”, in Kiplinger's Personal Finance, page 32

   “A chop shop disassembles the entire car, so they need a location that is secluded, like a warehouse or a vacant factory — although today′s forfeiture laws tend to discourage chop shops.”

   2009, Taylor Joseph, Allison Investigates, Four Star Publishing, page 94

present singular third person chop shops · participle present chop shopping · participle past chop shopped · past chop shopped · alternative chop-shop

1. alternativeAlternative form of chop-shop.

   A new income, from "chop shopping," the dismantling of stolen cars and the subsequent sale of their parts, was adding to the coffers but was no panacea.

   1995, William F. Roemer Jr., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, page 305

   1 more example

   Seller of used car, who had fraudulently represented to buyer that the vehicle identification number (VIN) had been scratched out under windshield because former owner had been trying to prevent repossession of the car, was liable to buyer for punitive damages, based on having acted willfully or with reckless disregard for the consequences of the seller's conduct, even if the seller had not known the car had been "chop shopped" from two different vehicles.

   1961, American Jurisprudence Proof of Facts, Annotated, Bancroft-Whitney Company