Every track car or off-road build eventually reaches a critical juncture. You have to make the call—is this thing staying road-legal, or will I commit to trailering it around in the future? That decision might be easier in said future, thanks to U-Haul’s new enthusiast-focused trailer offering.
Meet the Toy Hauler. It’s a new, larger car trailer, that aims to make it easier to get your project cars and fun weekend rides where they need to go. As covered by Road & Track, the new trailer was specifically developed by the U-Haul Technical Center to serve enthusiasts and their unique needs. “Reviewing our customers’ demands, we recognized that many need to haul a race car,” Jeff Korman, director of the U-Haul Technical Center, told the outlet.
If you’ve dreamed of owning a hardcore project car, but you’ve sweated about buying a trailer, this is good news indeed. Let’s take a look at what makes this new hauler such a nice upgrade.
Key to the Toy Hauler’s appeal is its size and capacity. The company had realized that the ever-increasing weight of modern vehicles was posing challenges for its existing car trailers, which have a rated load capacity of 5,290 pounds. The Toy Hauler ups that to a mighty 6,800 pounds. It’s also much larger, measuring 23 feet long, while the usable deck size is a healthy 16 feet. That’s over a 30% upgrade versus the existing Auto Transport trailer, which has a much shorter deck of just 12.25 feet by comparison.
U-Haul has also paid attention to practical concerns around width, too. The new trailer is 8.5 feet wide, which is only an inch wider than the existing Auto Transport trailer. However, the Toy Hauler has stepped “drive-over” fenders over the wheels. Depending on the vehicle in question, this can allow a wider vehicle to make full use of the trailer’s deck. In contrast, the older trailer design has vertical fenders which make it very difficult to load anything that measures wider than 6.5 feet at the tires.
Owners of more oddball vehicles will appreciate the Toy Hauler, too. U-Haul specifically fitted the vehicle with three ramps instead of the usual two. This is a huge boon for owners of three-wheeled vehicles like old-school ATVs or the Polaris Slingshot. Simply pull out the three ramps and drive straight up—no weird maneuvers needed.
The trailer may seem overly large for some applications, particularly if your race car is on the smaller side. However, having more room to play with is often a boon when you’re headed to the track. That abundant space can easily come in handy if you want to throw on a few sets of tires or other supporting gear that won’t fit in your tow vehicle. The trailer is equipped with enough tie down points that it should easily accommodate this.
The new trailers are due to arrive in 2025, and will be available in the US and Canada alike. It’s worth noting that the Toy Hauler is an addition to the U-Haul fleet, not a replacement. “The U-Haul Toy Hauler (or “TH”) is designed to complement the existing offerings rather than replace them,” Jasmine Spencer, manager of U-Haul’s towing program, told Road & Track.
[Mercedes Note: Time to add TH to the list of U-Haul fleet codes.]
The brand’s existing Auto Transport trailers will continue to be available, which currently rent for $54.95 a day. Pricing for the new trailers isn’t available yet, but expect it to start at a small premium given the extra capability.
As an Australian, I haven’t had a lot of experience with U-Haul’s own trailers, but I’ve used similar trailers before. They can be a bit clumsy and difficult to use. Meanwhile, our own Mercedes Streeter has used U-Haul’s existing offering, and she’s unwaveringly in support of the new design. In her own words:
It’ll be good to note that U-Haul car haulers currently suck at some things.
- You have no real control over load distribution as the trailer’s only tie-down spot is at the very front. This may result in far too much frontal weight depending on the vehicle you’re carrying.
- Narrow vehicles, like Kei cars and Smarts, require absolute precision to load because they almost don’t fit in the rails of the current trailers.
- Some vehicles cannot be loaded in reverse (which might help with the tongue weight problem) because you’ll either get stuck inside of the vehicle due to the right trailer fender not being able to fold down or the rear overhang of the car interferes with the front of the trailer.
- You cannot load any trikes.
- You cannot really carry large items, like a set of wheels, with your car on the trailer.
These new trailers will be total game changers. Getting rid of the big hole in the middle of these trailers will be so great. I mean yeah, they won’t be as stupid easy for amateurs to load, but the variety of vehicles that could now be hauled goes up exponentially. Thankfully, U-Haul is still keeping the old style trailer around if that’s your jam.
Hauling cars around can be daunting if it’s something you don’t do often. U-Haul’s new offering of a bigger, better-equipped trailer should ease the job, particularly for those with larger or stranger vehicles. Ultimately, if you’re only going to tow your project car a few times a year, you might find the new Toy Hauler the perfect solution to getting your car out to have some fun.
Image credits: U-Haul, Mercedes Streeter
I can attest to the weight distribution issues with the old one. I towed a ’69 Saab Sonett V4 300 miles home after I bought it on one. With the engine slung out in front of the front wheels and about the weight of a small dog on the rear wheels, the tongue weight was ridiculous. Made for a very uncomfortable ride home. We tried putting the Saab on backwards, but that resulted in not enough weight on the tongue. Too much is *definitely* preferable to not enough. Just the ability to center the load is a HUGE upgrade!
I’ll probably end up renting one of these to tow my Spitfire from Maine to Florida in the next year or two, though the old one would work just fine for that car.
I used to have a ’69 Sonett V4:
https://live.staticflickr.com/7170/6483620671_2c0f0edb77_c.jpg
As I recall they’re a bit narrow for the regular U-Haul Auto Transport trailer as well.
I’ve had two of them! I don’t suppose you live in CT and sold it to a guy from ME, because that looks an awful lot like my first one…
https://flic.kr/p/2qynR9V
It ran and drove, but needed a TON of work to be good. I sold it to my mechanic, who did the mechanical stuff but kept all the patina. Still seeing him driving it every summer in Maine.
Second one was MUCH nicer, but I never actually got it running before I sold it on:
https://flic.kr/p/88wULB
Sad story with the blue one – one of my friends in the Saab Club bought it from the widow of a guy who spent a decade restoring it. It came with $35K+ in invoices from the work. It was complete but not running with most of the wiring left to finish and getting the rebuilt and hopped up motor running and some interior stuff finished. But he never finished, my friend never finished it, and I never finished it. It became known as “Neverdone” in our circle. I ended up selling it to one of my BMW Club buddies who DID get it done and running, but then decided he didn’t feel safe driving it (Really? It’s a plastic bubble on a pie plate). He ended up selling it to a guy who sent it back to Sweden for huge money.
Among several cars I wish I had never sold, along with my Alfa GTV6, Peugeot 504D, and GTI Sport.
Nope. I live in Washington and sold it to a guy from Oregon. The last I heard he also sold it to someone who sent it back to Sweden. It was my daily driver for a few years and mechanically fine but it was in need of some bodywork. The sheet metal and the interior were surprisingly good, though.
I do still have my two-stroke ’67 96 which I race and rally as well as using as a daily driver:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52766800548_dc5fe0a28c_c.jpg
Very cool! I’ve had a bunch of Saabs. The two Sonetts, two C900Ts, two 9-5 wagons, a NG900SET (my favorite of all of them, oddly enough), and the only one I bought new, a 9-3 SportCombi, but never a stroker.
I have a fun story about driving a really cool stroker though. I went to the Saab International Convention in Finland in 2011 with a Swedish friend and some American friends. A huge contingent of the Swedish Saab Club were on the ferry from Stokholm to Helsinki, and of course many got hammered on the ship. The Finish cops were breathalyzing people as they drove off the ship. So some of the club members were looking for drivers who hadn’t drank. So I volunteered to drive this guy’s absolutely MINT condition Monte Carlo for him. He didn’t speak much English, I speak ZERO Swedish, my Swedish friend was elsewhere getting his car, as we expected the owner to go with me – but he was helping a friend whose car would not start. The guy points to the Saab ahead of me and says “follow them”. So I did. All across Helsinki and out into the countryside. I knew we were doing a tour to the college that was hosting the convention, so I didn’t think much of it, had a ball driving that thing. Ended up at a campsite. Where it turns out the car I was following and a couple of others with them were camping, NOT staying at the college dorm with most everyone else. Oops. Got ahold of my friend, who was with the owner who was very much wondering where his car went. They came out and found me. No harm, no foul, a great time was had by all!
Blurry pic of the Monte Carlo: https://flic.kr/p/2qyy2y3
Sure, now they come out with a trailer that I could have hauled my truck home with. Although hopefully the existence of this thing will ironically mean I never have a need to haul my broken down truck 350 miles again.
This looks like it might have a gentler ramp angle too, so lower cars will have less trouble loading and unloading. That would also be nice since I’ve seen some pretty sketchy things done to get low cars on a UHaul car hauler.
$55/day?! I had no idea! I haven’t rented a U-Haul trailer in many, many years, but when I did, pretty much any trailer from U-Haul was $19.99/day. For a person like me who doesn’t need a trailer often, renting one was less expensive than owning one, when you figure for plates, insurance, and making a place to store the thing.
At $55/day, that equation changes quite a bit.
For my use… in the era when I was renting car trailers in Michigan, I discovered that Michigan did not require plates *or* insurance on a tow dolly, and it needed much less storage space than a trailer. The best part was that I bought a used Demco Kar Kaddy for $250, used it for 3 years, and sold it for $250.
The small utility trailers start at $15/day and the smaller box trailers are still under $20/day. The car hauler has obviously gone up, but I think it was $45/day last time I used it and that was 10 years ago. Seems like the trailers there are still very reasonably priced.
The piano shop I used to work at dabbled in renting UHaul for a year or two. I saw some really bad weight distributions from only having the ability to secure front tires all the way up front on the current car-haulers.
An Excursion hauling an Escape (?) had the Carolina Squat—guy was freaked out, so brought it by the shop after loading as he had a long way to go. Can’t move the tie down point, so I suggested he move stuff from rear of tow vehicle in to back of towed. That helped a bit, but I wouldn’t have wanted to drive the combo almost 1000 miles
Why not just back the Escape onto the trailer? That should have helped.
I suspect the Escape is long enough that loading it backwards would drop the tongue weight too much, which is even worse.
SWEET! This is exactly what I need 1-2 times/year for hauling 4′ round bales of hay. With those robust stepped fenders, I should be able to load a layer of 8 bales and another 3-4 on top, which would max out the weight capacity.
i like that, clever repurposing of the car hauler
Easy unload too. Either reverse and a fast stop or find a hill.
Too bad it isn’t something like this:
https://www.acmetools.com/air-tow-trailers-12-drop-deck-flatbed-trailer-75in-deck-width-10000-capacity-t12-10/420120000139.html?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADub60vS1Q6LbZ7u8691tAcmefZnC
Uh, how soon can I buy one?
Seriously, my trail truck is too heavy for the OGs, and my local equipment rental places (CAT/United/etc) either have pintle hitches, which suck on 1/2 ton trucks, or the ball hitch versions are rented until early 2067.
I can save a lot of rubber on my M/Ts with this.
The tongue weight issue with the auto transport trailer has actually made me use the tow dollies more often, when I can. I scrubbed the sides off my old front tires on my Tahoe 9 years ago when I towed my Lumina Z34 home to Chicago from Cedar Rapids on an auto transport trailer. I’m ecstatic to see them make this change, it’ll definitely keep me a customer of theirs.
This is a genius move. They’re going to rent the bajeebus out of these.
That does sound useful although I’ve managed with one wide ramp on occasion:
https://live.staticflickr.com/7347/10304261096_f3e60825bd_c.jpg
Oooo! A Freeway!
Indeed. That U-Haul combination is how I got it back home after it broke down about 300 miles away. I do have my own trailer when I know in advance I need to tow it somewhere but mine only has two conventional ramps so a bit of repositioning is involved for loading and unloading:
https://live.staticflickr.com/1692/24104006120_e356d170f5_c.jpg
Oh man. This makes me sooo happy.
There’s several U-Haul locations within 15 minutes of me and they’re all really good about keeping trailers in stock. This really gives me some hauling flexibility since I don’t have the space to permanently store a trailer without it being in the way all the time.
Based on my time working at Uhaul (that was 14 years ago now, yeesh) and the stock I still see around here locally, I think they are generally very well stocked. The big 6×12 enclosed trailers were the only ones that ever ran low, because a lot went out for 1 way rentals. The smaller stuff usually stays local, and the car haulers and tow dollies usually didn’t go out for more than a day because they were more expensive.
Awesome. As someone who does a lot of off-roading and may be picking up another dedicated trail rig, this will be nice, as the current U-Haul auto transporter doesn’t play nice with wide vehicles. I have friends who have bought auto transport trailers just to haul their trail rigs around a couple of times a year – with the drive-over fenders this will be a nice alternative.
Came to say the same thing. Sorry I missed yours first. I get my off-roading in western Virginia and West Virginia, so it is always 1.5-4 hours to get where I am going. That ends up being a lot of rubber off of M/Ts.
Exactly! I’m fortunate to be right in the eastern Rockies, so getting to the trail is easy, but I haven’t been to Moab or many of the western Colorado trails in years because my friend sold the car hauler trailer I used to be able to borrow. I am legit excited about being able to just rent a U-Haul, which is a comment I never thought I’d type…
I’m a little iffy on the non-folding fenders – this trailer pretty much mimics my open trailer, and, I know my trailer would be a whole lot less useful without those removable fenders. Hopefully the little cutouts make more of a difference than it seems like they will, but, from the looks of it, just about any car isn’t going to clear very many of those ridges.
While I would not tolerate non-removable fenders in a permanent trailer, for an occasional rental you just find a way. We some effort, any car can be exited Nascar-style.
I had to Nascar out of my FRS because the door swung so low it hit the tires with the fender folded down.
The height of the non-folding fenders looks lower that the top of the folding fenders did, so hopefully it’s not a major issue.
For years, U-Haul has refused to rent for rear engine Corvair hauling because the tongue weight is bad if the car is loaded normally. We’ve had to resort to calling it a Camaro and loading it butt first or way forward on the trailer. Hopefully this new one will eliminate that issue.
Calling a Corvair a Camaro is similar to my default solution to the problem of “I’m sorry, that car’s not in our system so we can’t approve it” by claiming I need the trailer for a 1974 VW Beetle. I’ve somehow managed to move several ’74 Beetles despite only ever having owned one.
Mine was always 1995 Honda Civic
That is the magic trick with U-Haul. Supposedly it’s the lightest car in their system.
It also has a wide enough track that their system doesn’t flag it for not fitting fully on the rails as Mercedes illustrated above with that Beat.
Or, telling them your tow vehicle is a Mazda Navajo instead of a Ford Explorer, that used to be something you had to say
My default option is “1991 Honda Civic” because I’m usually moving something way too obscure for U-Haul’s liking. I wonder if somewhere there’s a record of all of the 1991 Honda Civics I had to haul around America. 🙂
I’m curious what the trailer weight will be. The current ones are a bit over 2k lbs so hauling a middle weight car can get dicey for a Class3 hitch.
Hopefully the trailer being wider/longer allows the door to be opened with those tall wheel covers and rails. Even the fold down style on the current trailers leave a rail that’s too tall for low-ish sports cars to open the doors enough to get out.
I’ve read that U-Haul trailers are a paragon of durability. Thinking over 80 years they’ve learned what works.
Did you respond to the right post?
It is good to see something bing improved, upgraded, made more useful, and overbuilt in this post-modern hellscape. Good for U-Haul. Now if we can only make it idiot proof. I worry about people who do not tie down their atvs/utv very well at all. I see scary stuff all the time.
This will not only be better for race/enthusiast car choices but also for people with off road rigs. My K5 on 40s would not really fit on the existing U-Haul trailer but would fit on this. Being able to rent a quality trailer for the few times a year I’d want to tow the Blazer someplace further then I’d like to drive it (or worry about driving it back from!) would be a very nice option relative to having to buy a trailer that sits in my yard 99% of the time.
If your race car is a 2006 Scion xB, the current Auto Transport trailer is pretty much perfect. I’m a huge fan of the integrated tire tie downs up front, and you don’t need any extra length for spare wheels because you can fit them in the back of the xB. I even like the big hole in the center of the trailer because it gives you the opportunity to look underneath your car – it’s always good to check out the underside to see if that last jump may have broken anything.
This new toy hauler seems nice for people who would prefer to race something else. Why they’d want to do that, I’m not sure.
The 1.5 in those XBs, Echos, and Yarises (Yariii?) was probably the most dependable engine Toyota has ever made. It is even still in the Prius C and is way more reliable and trouble free than the 1.8. You may not be fastest, but you will finish every race. Kudos.
22R, RE has entered the chat here. YMMV of course.
I rode in a Prius C taxi in Vancouver BC last month that had just turned over 1 million km on the original drivetrain. Family owned with three immigrant guys from Syria running 24/7/365.
I sell a bunch of the C models. I have a saying, they are miserable to drive because the are slow and loud, but you get a ton of misery out of them.
Traffic from the airport to downtown was very heavy and this guy wheeled it like Earnhardt at Talladega. I was totally impressed with his ability to slot in to openings about a foot longer than the car.
I’m so happy that car is still alive and having fun. 🙂
It just recently started flashing a check engine light at me, right after I hooned it for a little video project some friends are working on (starts around the 5min mark – https://youtu.be/9VhMmdhhFMU?si=xZW7Ce31vkJS7jvj).
I’m pretty sure I replaced one spark plug and ignition coil when I got it, but I believe it is running on 3 cylinders right now so I should really replace all 4. It will happen at some point this winter, I want it to be ready for another season of hX.
A flashing check engine light means that it is likely that Catalyst damage will occur if you keep driving the vehicle, because yes it has a cylinder that isn’t firing the majority of the time. So yeah do a scan and fix that problem before your Cat has a melt down.
It is parked for the winter but I truly appreciate the advice. I will get it fixed before I start driving it again. Even if it wasn’t going to melt down, driving it on 4 cylinders was slow enough. 3 is practically intolerable.
the current trailer is also great for 2001 Focus race cars, we aren’t all wealthy enough for 06 xBs.