Jeff
SuperDork
10/30/13 9:49 a.m.
Close to pulling the trigger on buying a formula V. The only issue is that it's on the other side of country. Looking for options on getting it here safely for the least amount of money. Has anyone done this with a formula car? Can you use regular car haulers? Crate it up and ship it? I've even looked into flying out, buying a cheap truck to haul it back with, then selling said truck (which will be much less rusty than ON trucks) for maybe even a tiny profit.
Thoughts? Anyone want to deliver it for me? If you think you can do it for $1500 CAD, give me a shout.
Thanks,
Jeff
I was thinking at that size and weight, it might make sense to crate it and ship it. Maybe even by air...maybe.
The cheapest way might be to ship it by rail. Apparently the folks importing the 15+ year old Japanese market cars do that to get them out east.
When I bought my glider I had it shipped from Sacremento, Ca. to upstate New York on a trailer for $1800. (the blue truck is me backing up when it arrived) Trailer is 30 ft. long.
Shipping a car alone is cheaper than a car and trailer; the driver has to get the trailer on and off alone. Ship the car by itself and buy a new trailer when it gets here?
Yahoo says it's 40 hours of driving .....
Oy. Nice FV eh?
http://maps.yahoo.com/#/directions/?lat=37.857507156252034&lon=-87.099609375&bb=74.75274618925876%2C-199.6875%2C0.962268123245309%2C25.48828125&o=Vancouver%2C%20BC%2C%20Canada&d=Toronto%2C%20ON%2C%20Canada
This is a very expensive proposition. The cheapest way to do it would be to buy a truck and trailer in vancouver, have somebody willing to drive across the country, and then you sell the truck and trailer and fly the person back. Either way, if you break even on the truck and trailer, you are looking at close to $2k.
For instance, my costs just in fuel alone would be $1200 from Edmonton to Vancouver to Toronto.
The cheapest way this will work with minimal hassle is to get a professional crating company to build you a crate that completely encloses the car and secures it in place. Have somebody you trust in Vancouver handle the details/be there to watch it all go down. Then have it put on a train. This is still going to cost you (extremely rough estimate) $2k though since you won't be doing any of the work yourself besides getting the car at the rail terminal in Toronto. And professional crating companies charge an arm and a leg (but the product is typically perfect, so hard to argue with the price).
Oh, also, the northern route SUCKS, plus it sounds like you want it to be done within the next 6 months which is winter time which is EXTRA SUCKAGE going through Northern Ontario.
Going down through the states would be possible, but also could cause issues due to the individual driving for you not owning the truck, trailer, OR car :O Been there, done that.
Hi Jeff,
Why don't you pay Don a little bit to dismantle it and crate it? Then you can ship it as LTL freight on any East West carrier. You would probably get the price down to $500.00 or so.
Fly and drive a truck back. The fall is a great time to hit the mountains.
