The weirder they are, the better we like them. Here’s an assortment of unusual car carriers from around the world. 

In our recent feature on new car transporters, Car Carriers of Yesteryear, we briefly touched on an even more colorful and interesting subgenre. Some of the rigs are custom built for carrying automobiles, creating some unique vehicles indeed. Naturally, we had to circle back for a closer look. Check out these truly wild machines.

In the ’50s and ’60s, Convoy Transport Co. ran many of these shop-built custom carriers. These units employed a conventional cab, but mounted high atop the engine house, liberating many feet of cargo space. Windows in what would be the cab’s firewall bring to mind the International Sightliner.

Convoy also used these low cab-forward custom trucks, based on modified bus chassis with horizontal diesel engines (Cummins, we’re guessing) mounted amidships. The relocated cab allowed one more car to be squeezed on board.

Here’s a period clipping from a workbench magazine that goes into more detail on the Convoy mid-engine rigs. Drivers tagged the oddly-placed sleeper arrangement “the coffin,” an MCG reader and veteran trucker reports.

In contrast, this handsome 1940 Ford COE is almost conventional in appearance, with enclosed sheetmetal bodywork and stylish art deco graphics. Note the familiar Ford slogan of the period: “Watch the Fords go by.”

Here’s an action shot of one of the rigs shown in the lead photo of this story. Based on Leyland Leopard bus chassis, these New Zealand-based haulers could carry 12 BMC Minis per load. The waist-high cab layout looks awfully claustrophobic, and it doesn’t appear to offer optimum visibility, either. As the story goes, once these rigs were finished hauling Minis, they were reconstructed into buses.

Here’s another take on the cab-under-cargo concept—this DAF custom truck was used by de Rooy Holland to deliver new cabover tractors to market. Childen of the cold war will be reminded of the similar trucks used to transport Minuteman missiles.

to be continued…