The NYPD is revving up its auto crime division with a new unit to combat surging car thefts, police brass said Thursday.

“We’re coming out with an enhanced [grand larceny auto] plan,” Chief of Patrol John Chell told reporters after a crime statistics press conference.

“A big crux we will be we’re assigning newly minted white shields [officers tasked with detectives duties] in the detective bureau that strictly catch stolen car cases and build a good case for the DA’s office,” the chief said.

“That’s something that we’ve never done before.”

Stolen cars have continued to soar in New York City this year as part of a trend that started in 2019 but kicked into high gear in the early days of the pandemic.

As of Sunday, 7,624 cars were boosted across the Big Apple this year, an increase of more than 18% from the same period last year when 6,455 cars were stolen.

That puts the city on pace to record the highest number of stolen cars since 2006, NYPD stats show.

Inspector Robert LaPollo, who will oversee the unit, told The Post it’ll be tasked with running down each report of a stolen car in the two patrol bureaus where cops have seen the largest upticks — The Bronx and Queens North.

Previously, the auto crime division would only handle larger cases to take down organized groups boosting vehicles.

LaPollo said the department had made some gains in combating the trend but all the progress was offset by the TikTok car theft challenge.

“We would be down this year in [grand larceny autos] if it not been for the increase in [car thefts] of Kias and Hyundai vehicles,” said LaPollo, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Auto Crime Division in the Detectives Bureau.

The NYPD received reports of 1,186 more stolen Kias and Hyundais this year, which is 14 more than the year-over-year increase, according to police.

The nationwide trend — dubbed “Kia Boyz TikTok Challenge,” which targets 2011 through 2021 Kia and Hyundai models without key fobs — picked up late last summer with younger people stealing and joyriding the cars.

“A lot of the younger people in the city are caught up with this new challenge,” the inspector said, adding, “It’s something that they’re doing amongst themselves to try to one-up each other by taking videos of doing reckless things.”

Even if the department kept pace with last year, the figures are still a far cry from before the pandemic, with just 5,403 stolen vehicles in the whole of 2019.