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A Little Ferry police cruiser was struck during the pursuit, which began in Ridgefield and went through several towns -- on highways as well as back streets -- before winding up back there.
The driver and his passenger were then somehow able to flee south on the New Jersey Turnpike with both the flats and a heavily-damaged front end, police said.
Fortunately, no one was injured, Ridgefield Police Chief TJ Gallagher said Thursday.
It all began late Wednesday afternoon when the two bandits pulled up to a car wash and detail center at Edgewater Road and Railroad Avenue in his town in a 2012 Toyota Camry, Gallagher said.
The sedan had been reported stolen from outside the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark a short time earlier, authorities said.
The thieves were intent on stealing a vehicle outside the car wash, Gallagher said, but its owner and the owner of the business spotted them and came running.
So they took off.
Ridgefield police spotted the Camry heading east on Route 46 a short time later, the chief said.
The chase was on.
The sedan driver took the exit up to Broad Avenue, then swung back around onto westbound Route 46.
He continued through Ridgefield Park before crossing the Winant Avenue Bridge -- with police not far behind -- and turning onto Bergen Turnpike.
The Camry continued into the dead end of Bergen Turnpike, near the former site of Tracy's Nine Mile House, Little Ferry Police Chief James Walters said. His officers and police from other jurisdictions had joined in by this point.
Trapped in the dead end, the driver swung the Toyota around and barreled past his pursuers, Walters said.
Both a Little Ferry police car and a parked pickup truck were struck by the speeding sedan, the chief said.
Driving on the two flattened tires, the wheelman headed back west on Route 46, then got onto the northbound New Jersey Turnpike.
The car was last reported seen in the area of the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop in Ridgefield.
The next anyone heard, the smashed-up Camry had been found. It was in Newark (no surprise), back in the parking lot at NJIT.
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