Here I thought we had already found the maximum load in the US for a non-special permit car carrier: 13 Toyotas. I had to count twice to be sure, but there’s fourteen Saturns on this rig hauling them from the Spring Hill, TN plant from where they sprung.
As to special-permit rigs, Convoy operated 18 car extra-long haulers here in the PNW.
That’s almost enough for a whole planet!
I assume unloading them is physically limited to how they were loaded, but was there a user guide as to how to load them?
And while I’m asking dumb questions, was there a labor rate guide for the loading and unloading of these Saturns without scratching any of their pretty plastic panels.
I owned a new Saturn for one week and got a full refund when I discovered it was just another poorly put together GM compact car. That full refund policy disappeared shortly after I (and probably many others) took advantage of that policy.
“That full refund policy disappeared shortly after I (and probably many others) took advantage of that policy”
I remember Saturn pushing this at the time. I wish I could readily find what the stipulations were today (specifically the mileage) because I have to wonder how this played out in regards to their “No Haggle” policy on the cars that were, in fact, returned. That had to have caused issues one way or another. Could they be re-sold as new? I know I’m not buying a “new” car with say 300 miles on it and being told “no haggling”…
Hi cjiguy, I asked the sales person about this and he said they resold it with a very much extended warranty and explained that the original purchaser (me) was a real “Felix Unger” (*) type of guy.
When he said this my unspoken response was: “Hey; I represent that remark.”
I don’t know if the price on that car was adjusted; Saturn’s fixed price could be “unfixed” sometimes by overvaluing trade-ins.
With a better quality control Saturn vehicles could have been real players in the small car market. Their advertising was intelligent and the plastic panels were a good idea. The showroom had a Saturn door lying on the floor and sales people would jump up and down on it in their shoes to show how such abuse left no marks. That was fun to watch.
(*) https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/134mss/on_november_13_felix_unger_was_asked_to_remove/
I’ll bet some people never even blink at buying a car with several hundred miles on it “Oh, it was a dealer trade, our trained professional drove it from the next state over at a steady 55mph…” Complain about the miles and you get an extended warranty and a balloon.
Teslas are fixed price too and returnable, those cars generally are resold with a small discount if one inquires about it, nowadays they are probably just snapped up quickly by someone not wanting to wait months for their order if the spec matches closely enough. I doubt anyone actually returns one anymore, easier to just resell it on craigslist for more than you paid…
Definitely a carefully coordinated dance when it comes time to load and unload them and if they are going to more than one stop making sure you put the right white 4dr in the right place so you aren’t unloading and reloading to deliver the right car to the right place.
Near where I work there is a wholesale dealer/importer and they aren’t set up for a truck like that to get into the parking lot. So those trucks just park in the two way left turn lane in the middle of the road for unloading. So I often get glimpses of them adjusting the different platforms to get out specific vehicles or prepare to leave. (They are between the two grade level train crossings so sometimes it is more than a brief glimpse). The thing that always amazes me is the speed at which they back those cars down/out.
Of course youtube has the videos. This one is pretty good showing the loading process.
The first Saturns, sedan, wagon, and coupe were all within 0.5” of each other in length. So they could possibly squeeze them closer together on a consistent basis when shipping from the factory to the single-brand dealerships. No need to accommodate various sizes. Plus less risk of damage to the “dent resistant” plastic body panels.
Distinctive Freightliner low cab forward design. Reminiscent of the cab style used for garbage trucks.
Freightliner offered those for a few years, mainly to get some car hauler business. I did see some in other applications, but they were never common.
MH? Macks were like that and used as car transporter tractors here,
Man seems like that rig would high center way too easily. I wonder if some dealers they have to unload it in the street because there is a slight incline pulling into the parking lot.
I also wonder what the length laws were on a rig like this. Any van, flatbed, tanker etc is limited to 53′ unless you get an oversized load permit.
I see carriers in front of dealers being unloaded in the middle of the street (normally the center median of a four lane street) all the time. It has to be the easiest way to do it.
It is the trailer portion that is limited to 53′. If you look at the gap between the front of the red car on top and the silver one, the pivot point needs to be somewhere near the middle of that gap to prevent the decks from hitting during tighter turns. That pivot point is considered the front of the trailer and there is no overlap as seen with the typical 5th wheel style trailer.
The Saturns were almost exactly 15′ long and if you look at the top 3 the on on the rear seems to be the furthest point back and they are tucked together pretty tightly. That is an extra ~8′ in front on the nose of that red car.
That trailer looks awfully low to the ground, no?
I count 15.
…but apparently I need new glasses.
Sorry, I can only count 14…….
Good effort looks like the airbags are right down though.
I had a wagon, just like that one on the end of the upper deck! It never figured into my COAL series (yet) because I chose only to focus on the cars that I owned that were my personal daily drivers. Someday…
I had it for somewhat longer than RL’s Saturn, but it still qualified as the shortest-owned car I ever had. Maybe about a year. I wanted to love it, it had a 5-speed, and it was green. And I really wanted to be able to buy into the whole “family of owners” thing. But yeah, “poorly put together GM compact car” pretty much summed it up for me.
Cool pic. I love these transporter photos.
Never seen a tri-axle car hauler trailer.
Judging by the photo if the tractor has 22.5 steer axle tires I would guess the drive axles and trailer axles are sporting 19.5 inch tires. Probably to keep rig low enough for the multi-level trailer and at or under 13′ 6″ height.