We know, we know, this like some of the other features isn’t for everyone. There may be a few BF readers that will find this car of interest though. No, it’s not a barn find, but could this unit be used to haul and deliver some? Have you seen a 5 pack strap truck before? Do you wish you could have one? Travis is selling this one which is listed here on craigslist out of Boston, Massachusetts. He says he is “very negotiable” and is asking for $70K. This unit may be parked in Arizona you will have to contact the seller for the details.
This is a 2006 Freightliner Columbia with about 440K on the odometer. All the wheels are 19.5″. There is a 10 speed gearbox with the power coming from the 430 C13 to move this rig.
This is a rust free California/Arizona truck as per the seller. Boydstun built the pack strap and it is interesting. We don’t know how many were built. Could this be a money maker for you?
Motor-on,
Robert
Bring a CDL.
And… be prepared to spend $$$ for anything which might interrupt your trip, loaded or not.
But if you have your own car lot…. Why not?
Can not run in CA unless you have a complient truck in your fleet. Then the clock is ticking. I have owned a couple of these and they can be money makers. If you need a driver to deliver, let me know.
If I was younger and had a CDL, this would be a tempting buy.. I’ve seen two car carriers go out of business in the recent past.. Has to be due to poor management or big money competition..
Nice find… Nice rig..
Hate when that gets in the way😨
You could haul the whole barn with this. I’ve driven Frightliner [sic] Columbia’s and they are nice trucks. ( not a Pete or KW, though) I heard the Caterpillar C13 had a lot of problems, as this was right about when emissions reg’s forced engine makers to comply, some with bad results. I’ve heard of Cat motors going 7-800K miles without a rebuild. I’ve seen trucks like this pull a trailer with another 6 cars, although, this unit doesn’t look like it’s equipped for that. I would discourage anyone from thinking of doing this for a living. There’s some pretty low-buck auto transports out there, that pay their drivers peanuts, so I doubt you’d make any money, and insurance would kill you, not to mention the regulations you’d have to comply with just to drive the dang thing.
Cat had problems with the accert engines. They have convertion kits to rid of the dual turbos. 60 series the best overall engine. Cats are best off road equipment. We’re rebuilding a 4 cylinder Cat Skidster from1977 and it has never been apart. Has over 100.000 hours on the poor old Kitty.
You’re right Howard.. I believe this is why some are going out of business.. When a buyer needs a car transported, the request goes up on an Offer Board where contracted drivers pick and choose the transport. They are usually independent drivers with their own rig, so their cost of operation is very high..
As usual, what was a nice, over the road driving job has been trashed due to regulations, fuel cost, insurance and vehicle maintenance, which yields a very low income making it unattractive to truckers.. IMHO
Fuel cost? Have you noticed fuel is under $2 per gallon?
When fuel is that cheap, we make less money. When fuel was 5 a gal, that is when we make our best monry. It’s a formula called (fuel surchsrgr)
I did this for a living for 20 plus years. Made my best money when fuel was 5 a gal. With a team driver, we did 625.000 gross that year going 175.000 miles. The money is running Ca to Maine, I would average 15.000 one way. Takes about a week to do the trip. You can go to work for Toyota in FL and make about 1500.00 a week staying local. This 5 pak is not a over the road truck. They are used for local work only. Also this truck a different configuration than a 10 car hauler. No 5th wheel. The 2 car haulers you see are people that have another source of income and this is secondary to them. And then you have the foreigners coming in chopping rates.
What’s with the decimal places?
Hard to type on a flip phone plus the vision not as good with driving 3 million plus miles. And you?,,,,,…..
Plus flying over 20.000 hours that I may ad. Plus I can☺
Boystun went out of business by the way. The power screws they used in their last designed trucks were innovative, but also lead to their demise. The motors for the power screws tend to fail frequently and the deck’s sliders have to be greased up weekly. Thankfully for the car hauling industry, one of the other companies designed a replacement motor after Boydstun went under. Luckily this truck doesn’t look like it has any power screws.
They were a good company. I had bought 5 new trucks from them. They were in my opinion better than Cottrell. They had a good network for repairs and always coming out with good ideas to make the job easier.
i wonder how many sprite/midgets or smart cars this rig would hold? because it is one unit if anything breaks the whole unit is down, unlike a tractor trailer where you can switch out either the tractor or trailer and stay on the road. still be nice to have. nice find
About 20. If you keep the maintains up they very seldom break down. Like any other peace of equipment, maintained and driver is the key.also these trucks stay local. Not over the road trucks.
The best truck job are the ones that haul jet enginrs. About 8.00 to the mile. We are looking into hauler containers locally. It pays about 5 a mile.
no one crying about ain’t no barn in sight? how bout the patina! something new to see, dig big trucks too!
Ok, dave will appreciate this one. ( maybe he’s heard this one) A car hauler was driving late one night, when the headlights on the truck went out. No problem, the driver thought, I’ll just turn on the lights of the front car. When he approached an oncoming car, the car swerved into the ditch. When the truck driver asked the car driver why he did that, the car driver’s response was, “if that thing was as wide as it is tall, I’d have been screwed anyway”.
That’s just one of those truck drivers story. But it’s a good one. The other story is the guy thought it was a UFO.I have used the rear car for tail lights or 4 ways untill I could get to a trucks stop. Also had jumper cables run fron a car to the truck to get down the road when I had a problem with the charging system.
O the stories. Had the trailer break in half while loaded with 10 cars going through the Baltimore tunnel on 95.
Personally the rear overhang really scares me, so much extra weight exactly where you DON’T want/need it (a long way behind the rear axles), reckon that you’d probably get used to the way it drives after a while but definitely not something I’d fancy driving myself!
That design has been around since the 80s. Nothing new.
Another on Epay