The bear climbed completely into it while the car was parked outside a Lake Tahoe cabin.
Cece McCarthy and her son Dylan said they watched for nearly 30 minutes as the bear struggled to get out. It somehow hit the gear shift and ended up driving backwards.
They say it started in the middle of the night with sounds of the bear in their car.
"The chaos of him thrashing around inside the car," said Dylan McCarthy. "He pulled back the gear shift, which is a pretty hard task to do."
"By the time he got that car in gear he was desperate," said Cece McCarthy. "He did steal our car."
"But he left it across the street. It wasn't hard to find," said Dylan McCarthy.
The bear slammed the car into the neighbor's front porch. By the time deputies got there, it was gone.
