Let’s get this out of the way right off the top: needing a truck is not a requirement for owning a truck. We are PRO CAR here at The Autopian, and the “car” refers to anything you can get in and drive. If you want to get the biggest, toughest, off-roadiest 4X4 that money can buy, dump beaucoup bucks into it to make it even bigger, even tougher, even off-roadier, and then just drive it to the office, that’s fine. Whatever makes you happy.
“Wildest load transported in a car? Who needs a car?” Jason snapped this hero on a visit to India.
THAT SAID, there’s a whole lot of truck-stuff you can do without actually having a truck, especially if you’re creative and/or desperate when faced with a not-optional need to move a thing (or many things) from A to B. Move an entire apartment in a Taurus wagon? Done it. Two kayaks in a hatchback? You bet. So much mulch my RAV4 was on the bump stops and I couldn’t close the hatch and I got pulled over but the cop was cool about it because I only live like a mile from Home Depot? That was last weekend.
You tell us …
What’s The Wildest Thing You’ve Transported In A Regular Car?
To the comments!
I could’ve sworn that I took a photo at the time expressly to post here, but can’t find it anywhere on my laptop… the other day, driving my NA Miata up the hill to my house, I spotted a stainless steel Bosch dishwasher out on the curb at a house that was being remodeled. It wasn’t a full-size model, but rather one of the skinny ones that I guess are sold to NYC apartment dwellers and such. On closer inspection, it appeared almost unused: the stainless interior was spotless and all the bits seemed there, except for a power lead.
But I was in my Miata, and felt certain (from experience) that were I to go home and fetch my big old Volvo (a ’04 XC90 w/all but the front seats folded down) this prize would be gone. Without giving myself a fourth hernia, I managed to manhandle the Bosch into the Miata’s trunk with less than an inch to spare… of course, it wouldn’t close, but it sat partway into the trunk, which was good because I didn’t have any of the straps/bungees/rope that I keep in the Volvo.
Luckily, it was a short ride home and I got there w/o doing any damage to the Bosch or the Miata. No idea yet if it works (it looks way too nice to just throw away, but I live in a nice area, so sometimes rich folks just toss stuff) but it’s in the garage now w/the Miata for whenever I find time to examine it further.
I also brought home a metric buttload of cut-up trees about 2′ in diameter for use as firewood… perhaps 500-600 lbs. worth total in the Volvo. But that’s far less unusual, since big old trucks are intended to carry bulky items. I managed to heave all but the one biggest chunk up onto the tailgate myself, and a nice fellow helped me with that last one. Now I have to blow out all the shreds of bark in back with a leaf blower.
I moved a 4 foot tall ponytail palm tree in a third gen Prius about 2 weeks ago. I had to pull the trunk floor and underfloor storage tray out so the tree could sit on the spare tire. Even then I had to push the hatch up past where it opens to just to scrape the top of the tree barely under the hatch. Luckily, the tree was heavy enough that it lasted the 15 mile journey with no tie downs whatsoever and didn’t move an inch.
A king sized mattress on a 1975 Lincoln Mark IV.
I was helping a friend move. The ’79 VW camper was already full and the last big thing was the mattress so we tossed it onto the hood of the Lincoln and I laid on the mattress to keep it steady while my friend oh so slowly drove it the quarter mile to the new place. The road was a forested, one way dirt affair, at the bottom of a valley and it was late enough to need the headlights.
I got to experience floating through the forest on a king sized mattress with the pillowy soft suspension and gentle engine growl of a Lincoln Mark IV, the forest ahead softly lit from below by the hidden headlights. I’ve never taken hallucinogenic drugs but if there was ever a time to try them that would have been it.
Not super wild, but a shop-vac in an Elise definitely took some Tetris. Also moved a couple larger objects with the roof off and the passenger carrying them.
Also moved a large cheap desk across campus on top of a Geo Metro. No straps, so we just carefully walked alongside it holding it in place in the middle of the night. Surprisingly, it worked really well other than probably adding a couple more scratches to the roof of a car that was already literally held together with duct tape and baling wire.
This might be bending the question a bit, but I was in a passenger in the car when my grandmother brought a baby cow home in her Cadillac El Dorado.
For a brief period, I had a 2nd job as a DJ for parties and weddings. This was right around when things were transitioning to laptops, but the folks I worked for didn’t have that, so CDs, etc. So I was able to carry all my equipment in my 2003 Mini Cooper S. Shocking how much you could get in there with prudent packing.
1984, I was a ski racer (I live in Italy). University International races in Špindlerův Mlýn. We loaded my new Alfa 33 Station Wagon just off the dealership with three people, racing gear, and 12 pairs of skis – all fitting inside the car. One of the things you can only do when you’re in your early 20s and you’re obviously immortal. There was no Czech Republic back then, Špindlerův Mlýn was in Czechoslovakia behind the iron curtain in the Soviet block.
Saturday night. The girls’ racing was over, and we all went dancing to a local place. Yes, they used to have some dance clubs there despite being under a communist regime :).
Us boys were still going to have some racing the next day, but human nature being what it is on Saturday night, I ended up with a car (5 seats station wagon) loaded with nine boys and girls, seven of which totally drunk. I was sober and driving. As we didn’t come across any policemen, I didn’t end up in a Czechoslovakian jail.
A couple weeks ago I transported six 50″ x 16′ cattle panels (for our garden) on the roof of my 2008 Scion xB. Please note the xB is not 16 feet long. Also. . . I’m startled I didn’t get pulled over for obstructed vision.