Classic Car Shipping for Collector and Exotic Cars

How a classic gets loaded and held

Classic car shipping moves vintage, antique, collector and exotic cars, usually inside an enclosed trailer with a hydraulic lift gate and soft straps over the tires. Auto Transport Pros covers classic and exotic car transport in all 50 states, for driver-grade classics, restored show cars and low exotics with carbon splitters.

Many open carriers still secure cars with chains hooked to the frame or suspension. That suits a modern car built for it. On a car with chrome bumpers, thin brackets and fifty-year-old paint around the hook points, it's the wrong method. Classic car transport holds the car by its tires instead: a soft strap or wheel net over each tire, ratcheted to the deck, with nothing touching the body or the underside.

Loading is the other risk. A ramp tips the car at a steep angle, and a low front lip, a long overhang or a factory exhaust can catch on the way up. A lift gate raises the car level, which is why many exotics and lowered cars ship enclosed. Measure from the ground to the lowest point under the nose, usually the front lip or splitter, and give us that number when you call.

Not every classic needs the enclosed rate. A driver-grade car that already sees rain and highway miles can ride the top deck of an open carrier, where nothing drips on it from above. Enclosed is worth it for fresh paint, bare metal, concours cars, convertibles with old tops and anything headed straight to a show field or an auction block.

For documentation, valuation and timing around an event, read shipping a classic car on an enclosed trailer .

Original paint and patina at pickup

An old car comes with marks a new one doesn't have: rock chips on the nose, pitting in the chrome, a touched-up door edge, a rust bubble under the trim. At pickup each one goes on the condition report as it is, so the inspection at delivery compares like with like. Take your own photos in daylight too, panel by panel, including the front lip and the wheels, the spots that loading touches.

The condition report is part of the Bill of Lading, and what's written on it at both ends is what any later claim rests on.

Exotics, nose lifts and high values

Exotics bring their own questions. Many sit only a few inches off the ground and have a front-axle lift, which goes up before the car meets the gate, so say if the car has one and how it works. Some enclosed haulers carry one or two cars rather than six, which means fewer moves on and off the trailer and a higher rate.

Value matters too. The carrier's cargo insurance pays up to a set limit, so if the car is worth more than a typical limit, tell us the value on the call and it goes on a trailer with a limit to match. Car shipping insurance explains limits and what a policy leaves out.

A classic that won't run reliably

A car that has been sitting may start and idle, then have brakes that grab or a fuel pump that quits. Tell us how it really behaves. If it can't be driven on and off the truck with confidence, it ships as a non-runner, winched aboard, and an enclosed trailer still works because the lift gate carries it level. Non-running car shipping covers what the truck needs for that.

Details that change which truck comes

• The lowest clearance under the nose, in inches
• How the car starts and stops, including any choke, kill switch or battery cutoff
• Modifications: lowering, wider wheels, an aftermarket spoiler or exhaust
• The value, if it is well above an everyday car
• A fixed date, such as an auction, a show or a storage move-out

Classic car shipping questions