The illicit car trade is one of the dark sides of globalization, and its impact on the political economy of Nigeria is arguably one of the less probed areas in studies investigating Nigeria’s political economy. Previous studies are cross-national and did not include data from Nigeria in their analysis. This study was, therefore, designed to map the illicit car trade and its impact on the political economy of Nigeria. It used the qualitative method of data collection and thematically analysed the data. It revealed that the illicit car trade has undermined the political economy of Nigeria through loss of government revenues, loss of jobs in the formal sector of the economy, and security challenges. It consequently undermined government legitimacy and deepened institutional corruption. The study found that illicit car trade in Nigeria involves smuggling, forgery, under-declaration of cars at the ports, evasion of tax/tariff, bribery of security officials and organised robbery. It argues that the Nigerian government and the stakeholders are overwhelmed by the spate of the illicit car trade. It recommended that an effective anti-corruption war, reduced tariffs on imported cars, encouragement of inter-agency cooperation and collaboration, restructuring of the shipping company manifest (documents) verification system, and motivation of the customs officers and other security agents should be a declarative and actual policy of the Nigerian government to mitigate all the transnational links and enterprise vacuums that make Nigeria hospitable to illicit car trade and reposition the Nigerian political economy to be both growth and development-oriented.