Will.I.Am’s bizarro custom DeLorean stolen; APB issued on Twitter

Car thefts have been declining for years, but as we've said before, that just means thieves have either been caught or moved on to more advanced techniques. One owner who found that out first hand: Black Eyed Peas lead Will.I.Am, whose customized DeLorean that's the template for his proposed carbuilding firm went missing Monday night, prompting pleas from the singer on Twitter to his 4 million followers -- and some hilarious replies.

Earlier this year, Will.I.Am told Jay Leno that he wanted to launch his own carmaking firm, IAMAUTO, in Los Angeles, in part to "bring jobs to the ghetto that I came from." While he described the car as built using Chrysler parts -- including a Beats by Dre sound system -- the car in the photo above is a DeLorean that Will.I.Am had customized, and was later impounded for a bit by Los Angeles authorities for lacking things like a license plate and VIN.

All that seemed to be in the past as of Monday night, when Will.I.Am and Pussycat Dolls member Nicole Scherzinger rode in the IAMAUTO to a listening party for Will.I.Am's new album at the Avalon. Shortly afterwards, Will.I.Am's Twitter feed became an anguished stream of APBs for his missing ride, including the hashtag #givemebackmycar, which has not proven all that effective in previous stolen vehicle cases.

Later Tuesday, a Will.I.Am representative e-mailed TMZ saying "Everything is fine, he has his car." The celebrity news service also reported Will.I.Am's pleas to Twitter were never followed up with a call to an actual police agency to report the car stolen, and might have beena the case of someone partying beyond the clock-out time of the valet service.

But last night, Will.I.Am returned to Twitter and proclaimed his car still missing, saying "Im not going to the police...spread the word via tweets in case I'm getting punk'd. I don't want to waste tax dollars on pranks." He was immediately flooded with spoof photos to the #wheresmycar hashtag, with people asking "isthisyourcar?"

As of this writing, the whereabouts of a white spaceship that Will.I.Am values at $700,000 is still unknown, despite the reach of Twitter. Please, people, stop phunking with his ride.