Plot

A gang of teenage delinquents terrorize a small community by stealing cars and stripping them for parts, then selling the parts to a crooked junkyard owner. The police and an insurance company investigator set out to break up the gang.

Cruiser (Arch Hall, Jr.) is a punk with a taste for crime. His gang of hot rodding thugs, including Torch, Flip and Snoop, specialize in stripping cars in record time.The rampaging teens make quick work of any vehicles unfortunate enough to stop on their stretch of the highway. Using a chicken transport truck as a cover, they make off with their stolen loot undetected. Moose (Bruno VeSota), a crooked junk yard owner, provides ready cash for their illicit goods. A tenacious insurance investigator teams up with the police, determined to put an end to the crime-spree. As the noose tightens on the out-of-control teens, bullets fly with tragic results.—Drive Buy

Jack 'Cruiser' Bryan (Arch Hall Jr.), a spoiled and wealthy teenager, steals some hubcaps for his homemade hot rod vehicle. Encouraged by his success, he steals more automobile parts and soon organizes four high school friends into a gang of thieves, whom make up of John 'Torch' Lester (Robert Padget), Snooper, Flip Johnson, and Ben Shore. The four punks operate out of a drive-in restaurant and steal items items from peoples cars during the evenings.

A minor subplot has Torch dealing with his alcoholic and abusive father who does not know where Torch is making a large amount of money, but accepts it by confiscating most of the cash to purchase more whiskey for himself.

Cruiser also meets and begins dating Gypsy (Dee Dee Green) a fellow student who is also unaware of his extracurricular activities.

The police name Cruiser's gang "The Choppers," and insurance investigator Tom Hart (Tom Brown) is called to investigate the claims for stolen car accessories. The Choppers dispose of their loot through a fence, junk dealer Moose McGill (Bruno VeSoto), but the case is broken when Hart's car is stripped at the gang's headquarters. His secretary, Liz (Marianne Gaba), finds chicken feathers at the scene of the crime, and this leads to the discovery of the use of a poultry truck as part of the gang's operation.

The police set up a decoy broken down car along a highway outside Los Angeles and the gang in their poultry truck takes the bait. When the police close in, Cruiser radios them on his mobile walkies-talkie about the police approach and the gang flees back to the junkyard only to get betrayed by Moose McGill and his partner, Cowboy, who plan to turn them into the police. When the police arrive, Cruiser shoots and kills Moose and a shootout happens where Cowboy, Snooper and Flip are killed, while Ben is wounded. Cornered in the junkyard, Torch shoots and kills a few cops who try to overrun their position. When a bulldozer is brought in, Cruiser, Torch and Ben surrender to the police and are taken away to jail.