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!
Eight people in a Dodge Shadow America. Transporting people isn’t weird. That many in a Dodge Shadow not only makes it the most pedestrian-looking clown car, but when I drove over a slightly raised manhole in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston the frame actually bent. It was stupid. I paid to get the car fixed and then it was slightly accordionized by getting rear ended and pushed into another vehicle on the old Central Artery. Still drove it after with a highly visible crease on the roof. Again, dumb. Dumb. Car. Would. Not . Die.
About a year after graduating college, a friend and I decided to get an apartment together since neither of us wanted to live with our parents anymore. As dedicated bachelors, we did a terrible job furnishing the place. Here’s the best/worst decision we made…
A sporting goods store nearby was going out of business and they were selling a new air hockey table for cheap. We both decided it would be cool to buy it, then make a makeshift topper so it could double as our dinner table.
He drove a 1989 Cavalier convertible and I had two cars – a Corvette and a 1968 Cutlass. We decided to take the Cutlass and the Cavalier to the store and see which one could fit the table.
Plan A was to put the top down on the Cavalier and wedge the air hockey table in the back seat. The table was just too heavy to even think about making that plan work. It probably would have crashed onto that poor little Cavalier’s trunk and destroyed it.
Plan B DID work and I’m still amazed to this day. We opened the trunk of the Cutlass and just slid the table in. Shockingly, it only stuck out about a foot. We were able to tie the trunk lid down and drive it home without incident. Getting it up three flights of stairs to our apartment was no fun, but hey, we did it.
We never did make a topper for it, be we sure as hell played some air hockey.
You can fit huge amounts of stuff ina VW Polo, but the most I carried was half a ton of stone. Didn’t take up much room, but the suspension was almost bottomed out.
We squeezed a John Deere 60 lawn tractor into my brother’s Volvo 240 wagon. Had to take off the steering wheel to fit, but 4 hours later he unloaded it at home.
My lieutenant-mobile was a 2004 Mazda RX-8. I was pleased to discover that you can fit a truly staggering amount of cargo in such a small car thanks to the suicide doors. Absolutely crammed with uniforms, suitcases, supplies, and the rest of the nonsense a fresh-faced doofus 2LT thinks they’ll need (video game collection, Magic cards, art supplies etc etc). That sucker moved me and the girlfriend (later fiancee, later happily married) on a proper cross country trip from Atlanta through NOLA, Houston, San Antonio, Del Rio, then Lubbock, Amarillo, to Pueblo for training.
The only sore spot, besides the fuel economy, is when Houston stop-and-go traffic taught my clutch pedal calf a new definition of pain and suffering.
2008 Honda Element we used to move between houses. It was a sortof automotive game of Tetris fill it. 24” Ariens SnoTek snow blower, Honda push mower, Subaru gas power washer (that weird one Costco sold), echo leaf blower, echo weed wacker, 5 gallon gas can (empty). Remaining space was filled with random crap from the garage like rakes, garden tools, etc. It was a one seater for that part of the move… Sure do miss that Element, is was quite a handy box on wheels. Ridgeline replaced it (kinda) but not really, that said Ridgeline does a bit better on gas, aerodynamics I guess?
Focus ST: a yard of dirt (27 bags and plenty of room to spare, but not payload), another time it was packed with moving stuff so that even the center arm rest was stacked upon plus 4 bikes on a hitch rack and 3 kayaks on the roof. Yet another couple of times, 20′ lengths of cedar boards strapped to the roof rack to make either kayak paddles or a yard bench swing A-frame.
Mk1 Legacy wagon: full long block closed deck EJ22T. Moved almost everything I owned a couple of times.
’84 Subaru wagon: packed with stuff for me and GF at the time to move 750 miles. So glad Canada and US border crossings didn’t search it, not because I had anything, but because it would have taken a while.
GR86: maple boards and plywood to build a 50″ cabinet, reface the existing built-ins, and make 10 Shaker-style doors. I’m getting a trailer for it to pull the kayaks, yard waste for the dump, etc.
The entire wooden crate and skid for one of these: https://mesabi.com/product-category/engine-radiators-cooling-packages/ in and on a Hyundai Pony (in one trip). Approximately 18 2×10 boards 12′ long, 6 full 4×8′ sheets of plywood, and 6 half sheets. Some shorter bits and pieces as well.
Another time had 1-1/2 tons of wet sand in the back of a 79 F150. Had to tap the brakes to get the front tires to bite enough to make a turn on the highway at 80 km/h.
We tranported a Pool Table in the back of a Dodge Caravan.
18 bags of mulch from Home Depot in a Dodge Challenger. Trunk and back seat filled, and the trunk closed.
65” plasma TV in the back of my Honda CRZ. I measured the TV, measured the car, took the tv out of the box and angled it in the hatch. A number of onlookers stood around to watch it fit into the car.
Close second was an 8’ Christmas tree in that same car with the trunk between the seats and over the stick shift
If I knew how to post pictures I have a picture of that second one
Everything I owned from University Park, PA to Rapid City, SD through 2 blizzards over New Years in a Fiat 500.
My kids’ new backyard playground needed rubber mulch – we thought we had enough but didn’t, and you can’t get rubber mulch by the truckload around here.
My wife and I had two vehicles at the time: my 2016 Mazda6 and her 2019 Toyota Highlander. We have since gotten rid of the Highlander to save money but I still have my paid off Mazda6. But, at the time, the 6 got to play pickup truck and haul some mulch, as did the Highlander. The guys at Lowe’s said there’s no way we could fit it all. I said “Watch us.”
Thankfully, it was just a 7 mile drive home from Lowe’s. The 6 sure was squatting. I was right at or maybe slightly above the maximum payload with the bags of mulch and myself in the car. It didn’t really drive any differently aside from being rougher on bumps and a bit slower.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h_OziHWAnXGnxXitGmUopg9rr24rPkxA/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eaDUYgp9filtN_EGLiiIEn-ni3AZeMDT/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eI3jvzdgFnpdpfylJ7N4XNTomonFY_SG/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TKVm7HuWatopTKB0uZ8dUsH7qfvlrVDK/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZDbi_9yzrDIvR3TnJDS1jXf8qcoUW-ht/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZiU_1jX05dS5o8E9cewlWKRmOB-HxkxD/view?usp=drivesdk
Not really out-there, but I once carried the entire front end body parts of a VW Polo 6N inside my Renault 4. I just tumbled the seats forward and put the fenders and grille at the bottom, then the hood on top of those, and finally the bumper, which I had to secure using the passenger seat headrest so a good portion of it was actualy hanging right next to my head, extending into the front seat area. But visibility was still surprisingly good and all parts came out unscathed, and it allowed me to get my decomissioned 98 Polo back on the road after 4 months. I then had to put everything inside the Polo, but that one was impossible to drive with all those parts inside – also very illegal to drive around in a wrecked car – so that trip was made in a flatbed truck.
Long time ago when I was a just-licensed 16 year old, helped some family move some stuff from one army base to another. This was the stuff my uncle wouldn’t trust the lowest-bidder contracted moving company with. So it was me, my even younger cousin, a box of half-empty booze bottles, and several deer rifles crossing state lines in an ‘88 Dodge Caravan.
5 kids, 2 adults, 2 great danes, 1500lbs of hardwoods and marine grade plywood, 1000lbs of carpentry tools, and 60 gallons of gas on the custom lumber rack on the roof of my 1972 Toyota Corona mkII wagon in 1955 ford thunderbird turquoise with chrome 5 spoke wheels to emulate the ones from a Ferrari 308 because my dad saidI could choose, and I was 12. We drove like that from our home in Coupeville Washington to a contractor’s old beach house in Ocean Shores Washington to put in a new kitchen and called it a family vactation. Best trip ever.
Carried home a tree, about six tall, in the backseat of a PT Cruiser convertible. Got a lot of looks…
‘Convertible’ means a car that converts into a pickup truck.
Not exactly “wild” but definitely an accomplishment, 8 foot long pole in a Lexus CT200h (a Prius in a suit)
Didn’t even need to have the trunk open, though it was a little bit in the passenger footwell.
I put a Lotus Seven clone (no wheels on it) in the back of my wife’s Nissan Quest.
Complete Lambretta motor scooter in Toyota Tercel 4wd.
In 1984, my family used our 1971 Vega fastback to haul out the Christmas conifer we stole from a local state park we four-wheeled into..
In 1987, I used my 1978 Chevy Nova to transport my high school’s fiberglass mascot that we stole.
52 computers in the Toyota Matrix XRS. And about 10 monitors.
I worked at a music store in high school. I was a guitar tech, and sold guitars. One weeknight no one was on drums, so I side stepped over there when the need arose. A mother/son came in and bought a five piece drum combo for the kid’s birthday or something. Stands, throne, bass, toms, snare, cymbals, etc. The whole schmagoigle. We got the entire drum set into their 350Z with the mom and kid. Total Tetris situation, but we got everything in there. The kid (probably 10yo) ended up with the bass drum in his lap wedged between his chest and the dash, and wrapped around it like a “C” with something in the footwell (I forget what exactly). Most tightly packed car I’ve ever seen.
The single heaviest load I’ve moved in a regular car by myself:
A couple dozen Silicon Graphics Indigo2 Unix workstations when the visual effects house Rhythm & Hues moved/downsized… well over 1,000 pounds worth, in a A4 VW Golf. They were squeezed into every available space including the passenger seat/footwell, but it was a ways from my home and daylight was burning, so I didn’t want to make two trips.
Brought 10′ and 12′ lumber home in the same car many times, with the hatch open of course. And a disassembled huge bookcase (also with the hatch open) originally from C&B, or Conran’s or someplace like that. It’s still disassembled (years later).
To get a couple hundred 12″x12″ concrete pavers home from the local OSH, I actually rented a cargo van and even then, it seemed prudent to divide the load into two trips after seeing how low the van rode with just half the load inside.
Since then, I bought a ’04 Volvo XC90, more or less to use to haul stuff home (and it’s also become my daily driver despite the low MPG). I’ve brought home so much stuff in it during the few years that I’ve owned, including broken chunks of a concrete slab (to build a retaining wall), a hot-water solar collector (10’x4’x.5′ and damn heavy, lashed to the roof) and a wide assortment of couches, appliances, etc…
These days, what I want is a hybrid Maverick with a bed liner to replace the VW and the Volvo both. Lately, I’ve been watching those Mike the Scavenger videos on Youtube: he’s very informative and entertaining. Which only makes me want a pick-up even more.
Oh, I also brought a GIANT potted cactus home in the Golf, sticking WAY up out of the sunroof by at least 4-5′ …I splinted the top of it (once it was in the car) w/scraps of cardboard and twine scavenged from the Home Depot parking lot so that it wouldn’t bend or snap while driving home. This was a few years ago… now, that cactus is way over 10′ tall and far beyond my ability to move again w/o assistance.
I like to drag stuff home. 🙂
Forgot to mention, the Golf is a ’00 TDI: only 90HP but 150lbft of torque. The weight of a heavy load barely seemed to bother it much ever. It was a little slower with all those SGIs in it, but it got up that incline on the 405 (heading north towards the 101 from around LAX) just fine.
I just took a pic of a LONG chunk of 12×6″ lumber (it used to be the ridge beam of a neighbor’s house) that I dragged home in the Volvo after learning it was going to be taken to the dump. It’s 17.5′ long, and heavy as F*CK, and of course, a LOT of it hung out of the back of the XC90 (I was a little worried we might break off the bottom part of the tailgate wrestling it into the car) …so much so, that I had a friend sit on top of the front end of the beam inside the car, to keep the far end from tipping down and dragging on the ground.
I just didn’t want to see it go to waste: such a massive hunk of lumber. I’ve gotten most of the couple hundred bent nails out of it, and am in the process of priming it to protect it from weather… it’s up on four cast iron feet I removed from a woodstove at the moment. Just using it as a long outdoor bench for now, but if I ever need a ridge beam in the future… 😉
Here’s a photo: https://postimg.cc/w7PkDsR0 or maybe https://i.postimg.cc/ht43WLDW/6x12x17-5ft-ridge-beam.jpg
This said ‘thumbnail for forums, but probably won’t work:
[url=https://postimg.cc/w7PkDsR0][img]https://i.postimg.cc/w7PkDsR0/6x12x17-5ft-ridge-beam.jpg[/img][/url]
Wish I could edit. 🙁
For no reason, the image upload a minute ago doesn’t work, but this one does:
https://ibb.co/16X6Gst
Multiple office chairs in a Z3 – top down with the chairs piled on the passenger seat. Rolled up to my local sub shop (looking at you Jersey Joes Deli in Dallas) and the owner greeted me with “what are you – the yuppie junk man?”
Also moved a 7 foot sofa in the back of a Plymouth Champ. Less than 3 feet fit in the car, but I jammed it in and then held on with one hand. Lots of fun as the car was a stick shift. The sofa was heavy and when it bounced the car got decidedly light in the front end.