What does the ultimate tow setup look like?

Not having one at all... 

I like my current setup : crew cab 3/4 ton, gooseneck trailer with roof top tent.

Deep down I really want a Ramp Truck with 4 doors (to bring friends to the track) and a sleeper/camper unit. Must be classic body for looks, air ride a big plus, modern engine/drivetrain for MPG.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out:

I'm not so picky about the vehicle doing the work, but my ultimate tow setup has somebody else driving the rig.

In reply to Cactus :

I love the idea of showing up to the track, getting in the car (your crew does the prep for you), driving it, getting out and then going home.

I've said it before, but my dream towing setup involves buying one of these old Uhaul ramp trucks, putting the car on top, and either towing a travel trailer or bring a friend and tow another car behind on a trailer. If you're doing a one day trip the you don't have to mess with a trailer, it's a little more compact than a standard ramp truck, it has more storage for tools, and it would be rad as hell.

My "ultimate" would be a stacker with a full crew :-) ... having said that, we are using an Aerovault with a Ford Lariat F150 -- even with the smaller setup, the Aeorvault causes "paddock envy" -- the Aerovault is perfect for weekend warriors like my wife & I -- BMW M235iR, spare tires, and some "kit" -- the Aerovault is shiny and doesn't rust -- 

Cheers y'all //

After 20 year of SCCA/NASA/Chump/LeMons/karts, I finally settled on this 

All I can say is that I should have done it decades ago. Being a true GRM'er, I got the RV for a good deal, needing some love before it was roadworthy. Was far cheaper than any truck I could find worth towing with. Also staying at the track from start to finish has greatly increased the race weekend enjoyment. 

In reply to gt40guy :

The Aerovault certainly turns heads, doesn't it?

For those interested, we did a video on the Aerovault for Classic Motorsports:

Kodiak and a 1.5 height trailer with two cars worth of space and a small kitchen/sleeping aread in the front. Or having somebody else move the cars for me which I would do over that if I had the cash and time. 

Well apparently at the moment this is it.  The single axle trailer fits well on the slab on the side of my house. Additionally the trailer will also fit in the garage which works out well for early morning local events. I can load the car and just store it in the garage. The van gives me a place to change and sit and eat my lunch. I've stayed in the van when I'm solo (it has a bath).

A newer van would be nice but  beyond that I like my current set up.  

Tom1200, your set-up looks great to me ..... this is all I can afford!  Modified Harbor Freight trailer. The wheel support posts can take four wheels and tires, also room for the toolbox, spares plus jack.  Fortunately it doesn't rain too often in Arizona!

In reply to Manxman :

I actually love that. I dig minimalist set ups. 

We are into the Van for 9K (after 15yrs) and the trailer cost me a cool $500.  I did have to put tires on the trailer though. :) 

Probably looks something like an extended cab, long bed 6.6 gas GMC HD with a 24ft or so Featherlight bumper-tow enclosed with some camping and climate control accessories built-in. Would solve most of the (very mild) gripes I have towing a 22ft steel enclosed with a 6.2. 

Big fan of the Cayenne towing the 911, but I can't afford that so I'll be using a Macan to tow my Miata!

I would love a second W116 with a bigger engine to dolly tow the W116 racecar. Not the best towing, but it would be neat.

Realistically my next vehicle will be powerful enough to tow a 3000lbs car on a tandem tow dolly.

Dream would be a daycab semi tractor based RV bumper towing a 25' enclosed. Ain't no kill like overkill!

In reply to Colin Wood :

A Jaguar hauling a Jaguar.  I recently bought this 1972 XJ6 I'm going to turn into a XJ12 ( it will just slide right in).   I'll put a trailer hitch on it and build a liteweight  (500 pounds) single axle trailer. 
   The Jaguar I'll tow will be the V12 XJS group 44 tribute car.  

I keep going through used trailers to find a steel 8x16 with a rack and in good shape for my budget but come up empty most of the time. Crossing my fingers itll happen in the next year or so.

Have truck, need trailer. 2021 F150 XLT 2.7L Supercrew with the trailer package. Works great so far.

The ultimate tow set for me is one I can't afford to have AND race. I'm on my third tow vehicle and second trailer...

First rig was our Odyssey towing a dual axle open trailer .. worked fine to drag up the road to the local track but always worried about the trans...

Switched to a F250 6.0 diesel on the open trailer and it was a great improvement and could go out of town with no worries, but hauling the all the spares in the bed and car was a pita...

Switched the open trailer to a 24' Haulmark enclosed I got from a friend that was upgrading, insulated with electric and added a generator and mounts for toolbox, plenty of room for tents and fans, fuel and spares.. etc then the fam wanted to come to the track and I had a base 2dr truck...

So I got a 2500HD 03 Chevy quad cab so I can bring the fam, diesel tax priced me out but the 6.0 gas is ok enough until I have time to upgrade again or put an SC and built trans on it for going into the mountains more often.

The only thing better I can think of would just be a little more truck and trailer or a toter home but both are sending the budget through the roof. I'd need to commit to racing another 10yr to justify it. Not sure I care that much!

I'm really pretty happy with my current setup.

2015 RAM 3500 with a 24' enclosed trailer.

Once or twice a year when I race at tracks like High Plains where there are no hotels near the track I think I'd like a tow setup with living quarters.  Something along the lines of this trailer that a buddy of mine used to own.

I thought I had it. 1 ton diesel ram, 28' enclosed trailer so we could fit car, spares, and golf cart for the track, or in a pinch two not large cars. But it sucked to park, sucked to get in and out of my driveway, sucked to refuel if there were no truck stops or larger stations with truck pumps. It just sucked overall, except being able to carry a bunch of E36 M3 we really didn't need. Couple that with racing way less than I anticipated and getting back into street cars, I sold the big trailer and got a rusty old 18' dovetail car hauler. For me, it's ideal minus the upkeep of a E36 M3ty old trailer. Plan to build a nicer one before the rusty one falls apart

Ideally, someone else would do it.  Big rig, among a few other race cars, and some mechanics so that when I arrive at the race, all I have to do is focus on driving.

Otherwise, it's understanding your compromises and making the best of them.  Ours would be to not own a full sized truck, and we would be pulling a 2400lb car with a 700lb trailer.  With enough spares for whatever we were doing.

If you can have a full size truck, towing is probably a whole lot more comfortable.

There's a divergence where the ideal tow vehicle stops being a good choice for the household truck.

I think I want a Transit or Sprinter from the heavy end of the range, which should be enough to tow with while not being too stupid to run to the home improvement store and park in the lot. It would also work well without the trailer for motorcycles and similar.

Box van is one step better and worse down the same path, with a side order of having to try harder to keep it neighborhood-presentable. I keep trying to figure out how to have a removable "RV insert" so it can do that but I don't have a kitchen or bath or nice floor in the way of hauling stuff all the time. A plain van makes a pretty rudimentary set of lodgings, and an RV makes a terrible truck.

EDIT: of course if we just don't address other concerns and want the ultimate setup for towing a race car to the track, it's got to be a bus-based RV with a suitably large and well-appointed trailer.

I've got a 2019 Ram 1500 Crew Cab with the 5.7L and a hitch. In the ideal world I'd do a 2500 with an enclosed trailer but that's not in the budget...

Jesse Ransom said:

There's a divergence where the ideal tow vehicle stops being a good choice for the household truck.

I think I want a Transit or Sprinter from the heavy end of the range, which should be enough to tow with while not being too stupid to run to the home improvement store and park in the lot. It would also work well without the trailer for motorcycles and similar.

Many professional enduro riders have Sprinter van based RVs set up so that the bike fits down one side of the van.

At some point I may redo my small trailer so it has a deck for the rare occasions I need to haul big stuff but at this point in life I tend to have the big stuff delivered.

When I was racing a 1st gen. CRX (~2,000lbs), I used a V8 Jeep Grand Cherokee and a 2-axle open trailer with a toolbox on the front and a tire rack over the nose of the car. With a weight-distributing hitch, you hardly noticed the trailer was there. The Jeep was also "right-sized" enough to be a daily driver, and the trailer could fit in my driveway.

Biggest mistake I made was when I thought I had to "upgrade" everything. Heavier race car, bigger truck, and enclosed trailer just meant logistical hurdles and more expense to store the trailer, fuel the truck, etc., etc..

My retirement plans are looking like this, just replace the Caddy with an XJ. 

nlevine said:

Biggest mistake I made was when I thought I had to "upgrade" everything. Heavier race car, bigger truck, and enclosed trailer ...

+1 ... x100 even. If the simple pleasure is the thing, keep things simple.

In reply to Colin Wood :

My current setup. All the comfort of home and the 3.0-liter turbodiesel pulls the Miata and aluminum trailer easily and still gets 12 mpg or better.  Hanged from a 24 ft extended height insulated enclosed trailer with ac and a fold down bed, which wasn't bad, to this setup last summer.

I have something similar to Tom1200 - big E350 diesel van - although I want an enclosed trailer.  I know open trailers tow easier, but I want to be able to fit other stuff inside the trailer securely besides a car. 

In reply to Toyman! :

How do you launch the boat?

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

I have something similar to Tom1200 - big E350 diesel van - although I want an enclosed trailer.  I know open trailers tow easier, but I want to be able to fit other stuff inside the trailer securely besides a car. 

I have my van set up in a way that I've got a mini work station at the back of the van.  I've got tools & spray cans hanging on the doors (shoe caddys work great for this), as well as a small air tank on a shelf (part of the RV) as well as a floor jack and jack stands. I keep small spares in one of the cabinets in the van (starter, alternator, water pump, gaskets etc).

The overhead bunk is used as a storage space: I only bring 2 spare wheels as a precaution in case I get a flat. I keep my canopy up there as well as chairs.

I've contemplated an under deck storage box on the trailer for spares.

Tommy Ivo's glass truck. Because dreams should be big, not sensible.

Or the Mercedes Blue Wonder.

folks with money: Dually HD 3500 to tow their Miata in a 26-ft combo enclosed tow-hauler trailer.

Normal folks: Something with a max tow rating of 5k lbs to tow their Miata on a dual-axle open-deck trailer.

Forum folks: A 4-cylinder 1984 Ford Ranger to tow their Miata on a single-axle trailer they built in their garage, and usually through 3 feet of snow, in 2WD, with bald tires, "because it's all about driving skillz, not the tow rig" :)

Toyman! said:

My retirement plans are looking like this, just replace the Caddy with an XJ. 

^^Toyman's dream. 

vv Toyman's reality :D

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

folks with money: Dually HD 3500 to tow their Miata in a 26-ft combo enclosed tow-hauler trailer.

Normal folks: Something with a max tow rating of 5k lbs to tow their Miata on a dual-axle open-deck trailer.

Forum folks: A 4-cylinder 1984 Ford Ranger to tow their Miata on a single-axle trailer they built in their garage, and usually through 3 feet of snow, in 2WD, with bald tires, "because it's all about driving skillz, not the tow rig" :)

 

Brilliantly said!    

In reply to mtn :

Lower the boat to the bottom level. The trailer I build will probably keep the boat on the boat trailer. 

Probably something more like this. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

That would be too much of a pain to deal with. I don't want to have to unload the boat to use the XJ. 

The wife and I looked at a really nice Winnebago Journey with the 360 hp Cummins which is super tempting. RV prices are starting to fall making the urge to buy one strong. 

frenchyd said:

In reply to Colin Wood :

A Jaguar hauling a Jaguar.  I recently bought this 1972 XJ6 I'm going to turn into a XJ12 ( it will just slide right in).   I'll put a trailer hitch on it and build a liteweight  (500 pounds) single axle trailer. 
   The Jaguar I'll tow will be the V12 XJS group 44 tribute car.  

I love the spirit of this in theory, but have been hesitant to do something similar for fear that if I got into any sort of collision, the insurance companies and or courts would look at my tow vehicle and say that wasn't designed or rated to tow anything so you're at fault. 
If we didn't live in a lawsuit-prone country I'd tow my RX7 with a big sedan.

In reply to dannyp84 :

 The courts don't care, they only judge based on evidence.
   The insurance company will be defending me. 
 While it's true anyone can sue anyone  at anytime for anything. 
  It's also true you can buy a million dollar liability policy for very little  per month.  It's cheap enough that  since I live on a lake it's  smart policy. Boats are big targets for hungry attorneys.   What I like about it is I don't have to hire the attorney. The insurance company does that since they don't want to pay out a million bucks. 
      That makes the prosecution's attorney  reluctant because they know they are going up against a high priced insurance companies attorney who will bury them in paperwork. 
 

When I went  racing in the Bahamas  I built a 28 foot triple axle enclosed trailer to haul both of our cars down behind Carl's big Mercury with the 490 cu in engine.  3,000 miles round trip. 
  No problems either trip. Never overheated, pulled nice and straight. Only got 6-8 mpg, less up in the mountains.    Except for the big extended mirrors it was just like driving a regular Mercury.  

If I had big money - a toterhome with matching double stack. 

If I had money - Class A with a trailer

I could afford - a Class C with open trailer

Class C prices are insane right now. Class B prices are even more ridiculous. 

At the moment, since I'm really only doing Champcar events, we tow the car, tools, spares, etc in a 26ft enclosed trailer with a Silverado 1500 Trail Boss. It has A/C and a few cots in it if we need to sleep there. 

frenchyd said:

In reply to dannyp84 :

 The courts don't care, they only judge based on evidence.
   The insurance company will be defending me. 
 While it's true anyone can sue anyone  at anytime for anything. 
  It's also true you can buy a million dollar liability policy for very little  per month.  It's cheap enough that  since I live on a lake it's  smart policy. Boats are big targets for hungry attorneys.   What I like about it is I don't have to hire the attorney. The insurance company does that since they don't want to pay out a million bucks. 
      That makes the prosecution's attorney  reluctant because they know they are going up against a high priced insurance companies attorney who will bury them in paperwork. 
 

When I went  racing in the Bahamas  I built a 28 foot triple axle enclosed trailer to haul both of our cars down behind Carl's big Mercury with the 490 cu in engine.  3,000 miles round trip. 
  No problems either trip. Never overheated, pulled nice and straight. Only got 6-8 mpg, less up in the mountains.    Except for the big extended mirrors it was just like driving a regular Mercury.  

This is all good to know and enlightening. I used to organize small drift events at a local track till I was told I could no longer operate under the track owner's insurance and had to get my own. I tried probably 5 different insurance carriers and no one would touch it. Is your liability policy for your lake house or your boat or both? Now I have to go find a 70s Chrysler New Yorker to tow with instead of my Frontier..

In reply to dannyp84 :

I don't know the deal. Perhaps you need assets worth more than a million before you can get the liability policy?     I was never offered it until lakeshore property exceeded a million. 
      

Leased Ram 1500 ($399/month) and rented UHaul trailer ($150/weekend). Can't get more low-budget than that for a "proper" rig. 

Personally, this 

In reply to LanEvo :

One of the vintage racers I know rents the cheapest Uhaul box van and trailer he can get for every event. He only does about 3 races a year so that makes total sense.

When I was racing SCCA there was a guy with a Formula Ford who had this whole set up that allowed him to hoist the car into a small box van.............he'd rent whatever was cheapest.

In reply to Tom1200 :

This approach is cheap, reliable, and practically maintenance-free.

I did a few vintage races this year, and some of those guys set the bar for the best tow rig that money can buy. Toter home/stacker combos that have to be pushing $1m. So my rig isn't anywhere close to the "ultimate" but I'm really happy with it nonetheless. F-250 6.2L gasser with a Cirrus 620 truck camper:

Towing an 8x20 enclosed cargo trailer. Enough room for my car, a Chinese GROM clone, a Westinghouse 3700 watt inverter generator, and all the car stuff and tools. 

In reply to ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) :

  Here's an SUV that would make the coolest tow Vehicle. Can't read the tailgate?  
Aston Martin.  I wonder if it's a V12? 

I would love a roll back with a lay flat bed, but I decided to take the budget approach, considering money spent on tow rigs is money not spent on race cars. Hence, project "Hauler for a Dollar" haha.

Bought the truck from work, it's a 2009 GMC 2500 2wd with the 6.0 gas and 6 speed auto. I extended the frame by about 5 or so feet, rear bumper is 6x6 tubing. All additional metal is 1/8" steel, while the ramps are 8x1' aluminum, weigh less than 50 lbs each, and each one can support over 2000 lbs. Deck is also aluminum.

It's not done, but it has done well with the couple times I've hauled the Exocet around. I built the dimensions to be able to haul the Supras, but I will be extending the wheel base by about 5 feet before I attempt that.

Parking's easier. Fueling up is easier. Storage is easier. Loading and unloading is quick, easy, and repeatable. Roughly the same weight as the stock truck was, so I'm hauling around a lot less weight than I was with an open trailer. Haven't used it for hauling anything other than a car yet, but it should be fine for anything else you could use a flat bed for, within reason.

Have future plans, including a 4-link and air rear suspension, perhaps front too, so I can jack up the front to make unloading less of a breakover angle. The design is fairly easy to expand upon, if I ever need a tire rack or something along those lines. I'm a hygenenic person, and while I don't *mind* camping, and could probably do it inside the back seat, or in a tent on the bed once the car's unloaded, I really prefer a hotel room so I can shower.

It's a work in progress. =)

It's great to see the wide variety of solutions put together by the incredibly creative racers here on GRM!  "Ultimate" obviously has many different interpretations, based on the needs of the individual racer.

Our brief included an enclosed trailer, to keep car, spares and tools out of sight of prying eyes and sticky fingers.  It also provides weather protection for the car, and for us when the weather is nasty at the track.  And finally, it's a mobile storage unit for the car between events.  Next up was the truck, and we went big, because part of the brief was being able to stay at the track for a full weekend of events... and that need eventually boiled down to a slide-in camper.  So, full ton dually diesel.

For the last seven years, the truck/camper/trailer combo has been fantastic for us.  For local, one-day events we just take the truck and trailer.  Full-weekend events, all three.  Other, non-racing adventures, just the truck/camper and maybe tow the Jeep behind.  On a couple of trips we took the race trailer with a street car and motorcycle.  It's a very flexible setup and has almost entirely met our needs so far.