Luxury and exotic car transport

The difference between shipping a luxury car well and shipping it badly is rarely the trailer. It is whether the person loading it has done it before. Ground clearance, a carbon splitter, a battery cut-off in an unusual place, a transport mode that has to be engaged before the car will roll — none of that is on a rate confirmation, and a driver meeting it for the first time at your curb is where damage happens.

So the equipment matters, and we specify it carefully. But the carrier's track record with this category of vehicle is what we actually select on.

The equipment we specify

For a high-value car we do not accept a generic enclosed booking:

• Hard-sided enclosed trailer, not a soft-side. Soft-sided trailers are cheaper and are not what this category should travel in.
• Hydraulic lift gate rather than ramps, standard for anything under roughly four inches of clearance and sensible above it.
• Soft nylon tie-downs over the tires, so nothing is clamped to suspension arms, a subframe or bodywork.
• Air-ride suspension on the trailer, which is standard on quality enclosed equipment and worth confirming.
• Two to seven vehicles per trailer, so the driver has room to work around each car rather than squeezing past it.
• Single-vehicle or sole-use transport where you want the trailer to yourself, at a significant premium.

Insurance that matches the value

The standard $100,000 to $250,000 cargo limit is not adequate for much of this category, and the gap is the single most expensive mistake made on these shipments:

• Tell us the vehicle's actual value at quote stage. Not the purchase price from six years ago, and not an estimate.
• We place the load with a carrier whose cargo policy covers that value, and send you the certificate of insurance before dispatch.
• Check whether the limit is per vehicle or per load. On a seven-car enclosed trailer, a per-load limit shared across other people's cars is not the protection it appears to be.
• Confirm your own agreed-value policy stays in force during transit. It usually does, as secondary coverage, and your insurer will tell you in one phone call.
• For genuinely rare vehicles, ask us about carriers holding limits well above the usual ceiling. They exist and they cost more.

Vehicle-specific details worth telling us

Every one of these changes the equipment or the handling, and each one is cheap to mention now and expensive to discover at pickup:

• Ground clearance as the car sits, including any aftermarket lowering, and whether it has a nose-lift system.
• Whether the car has a transport or service mode, and the procedure to engage it.
• Battery location, any cut-off switch, and whether the car needs to be started during a multi-day transit.
• Aftermarket aero, wide body work, or anything that changes the vehicle's width beyond standard.
• Alarm and immobiliser behavior, and any tracker that will report movement and alarm you mid-route.
• Whether the car is on track tires, slicks or anything that affects rolling it onto a gate.

Documenting condition properly

On a high-value vehicle, the condition record is the claim. Treat it as the important part of the day:

• Wash the car first. Paint defects and swirl marks are invisible under dirt and impossible to argue about afterwards.
• Photograph every panel, both bumpers, the roof, all four wheels and the underside of the front lip, dated, in good light.
• Photograph the odometer, and record it on the Bill of Lading at both ends.
• Ask for the carrier's own load and unload photographs, which we request as standard on these dispatches.
• Inspect properly before signing at delivery, in daylight if you can arrange it. A signed clean Bill of Lading is very hard to reopen.

Questions about luxury and exotic car transport

Related services

Where we ship

This service runs on every lane we cover. These are the states and routes people ask about most:

Before you book