Moving At Warp Speed
Now that I’ve purchased my ‘89 Formula and host vehicle for my Knight Project, I’m faced with the (not-so) minor problem of having the car shipped to Florida. Believe me, I’d probably have a blast driving it down here, but it eats gas like a sonuvabitch, and I’d be afraid of something failing on the way down. The car hasn’t been driven for extended periods in the last couple of years, and if something’s gonna break, I’d rather it happen while I’m tooling around five miles from home instead of on I-75 somewhere in the middle of Tennessee.
So, a few days ago, my quest began to locate someone who could ship the car down for me. A few years back, a friend of a friend of a relative brought down my old Grand Prix for somewhere around $620 or so. I called him up, hoping to get a similar rate, but was shocked to discover that he wanted $1,000 this time. Then I realized why. This is the beginning of the “snowbird season,” when everybody wants to have their car transported from northern states to southern states (particularly Florida). When my Grand Prix came down, it was at the beginning summer—when everyone was going the other way. I got a deal because the trucker was able to bring my car back on his otherwise empty return trip. No such luck this time.
So, I was faced with either paying $1,000 or letting the car sit up north until next May. Obviously, the latter prospect wasn’t at all pleasant, but I was pretty much resigned to it happening that way. But then today I decided to request from quotes from a variety of nationwide car transport services, and hit what I hope is a stroke of good luck. A company called National Auto Transport quoted me a rate of $695 to get the job done, and not only that, but they just had a cancellation so they could drop by and pick the car up this Wednesday or Thursday! Pretty incredible. So, I decided to book it.
I hope I’ve made the correct decision. It goes against my better judgment to rush into things like this, but I didn’t have much choice—given that I was filling a cancellation, they needed an answer from me quickly. Worse yet, I couldn’t find any better choices—the other companies I requested quotes from wouldn’t get back to me (one of them appeared to be out of business) or had almost identical rates. I don’t have any particularly bad vibes about this, but the fact that I had to hurry to set this up makes me feel like I may have missed something, naturally.
The company I chose is a national carrier that often handles vehicle shipments for car dealers. They’re licensed and bonded, the official auto transporter of the National Moving Network and they even have a “car tracking” service on their website so you can find where your car is at any given time (via customer service, though, not GPS or any cool technology you can interact with). Obviously, NAT is simply a broker; they farm out the actual transporting to regional carriers depending on where you’re moving the car from/to. But based on what I’ve read, almost all national vehicle shippers are like that. You take your chances with the regional guys they choose to work with. Hopefully I get some good people. But I don’t know…I keep having flashbacks to the time I moved from Orlando to Naples—I’ve never been through anything so hellish as that. But on the flipside, when I moved across Naples a couple years later, I again hired a local franchise of a national moving company, and got some really great people that time. So it’s just a matter of luck, really.
I looked at every search result Google could pull for this company, both web and newsgroups…and my findings seem to confirm my “you take your chances with the local carrier” suspicion. Several people reported that they were very pleased by NAT’s service, having used this company to transport their classic cars. Another guy who was shipping cars between Arizona and Texas had good experiences, until one particular trip when his car simply disappeared. The insurance company paid for it…but imagine the feeling of having your car just vanish like that. I mean, what the hell?
Still, that was the work of the Arizona region’s local carrier, so “your mileage may vary.” At this point I don’t have much choice, so I’m going to shut my eyes, cross my fingers and hold the hell on. If everything goes according to plan, KITT will be here in just over a week from today. If not…well, I guess I’ll be doing damage control. The good news is, KITT’s condition is not such that I’ll be upset if they scratch or even dent the car. I’ve got plans for a lot of work and part replacement on this car, so while I won’t necessarily be happy if any harm comes to it, it won’t be the end of the world.
Now watch this issue consume me for the next week straight. I sure hope I can concentrate on my job. I’ve gotta get our new website online by this Friday and I can barely think straight. Oy.
Categorized as Cars/Knight Project