What are you guys doing for insurance ? I can't find collector insurance that allows you to haul or tow. I plan to haul and tow with my COE this year, and will probably have to go with standard liability insurance, VERY EXPENSIVE !
I had stated value from my regular insurance company on mine. No issue with driving anywhere or towing. I towed a 16 ft travel trailer all over the PNW with the 48.
Marty, I had a similar problem. Haggerty finally agreed to insure my '46 only if I insured the trailer and race car with them.
Back when I was doing the towing thing pretty much dailythey were called 'old trucks' cuz you didn't have the scratch for a new truck. Let's fast forward. Now they're called vintage instead of old, have new parts, some modern upgrades and the question asked today is "Will they do the job they were built for when they were just 'old' and not 'vintage"? Am I missing something here?
Here's a couple shots of various towing with my 49. In one pic I'm flat towing my Jeepster Commando and the other pic I'm hauling my roadster project on a tandem trailer.
My 59 GMC has the same liability insurance as my daily driver 84 S-10. My 55 Cameo is on the same policy as my 55 210. I've never asked either insurance companies if towing is covered. Course, I've never asked about drag racing, either.
I guess my point was, I was hoping for more than liability, as my truck is valued in the 30-40 thousand range, and getting crashed into by a deadbeat, won't make me happy. A couple nice trucks you have there !
I went through this with my COE.....no "collector" insurance would touch it, was told my only other option was Commercial insurance(like a business). I ended up with simple liability.
I guess I have never had a nice old truck as a tow vehicle. None of mine have been nice enough to worry about having anything but liability. I’ll have to keep that in mind since I now run collector insurance on all my old stuff.
An old truck can tow just as good now S it ever did if built and maintained properly. Probably not as good as a new f350. But way more cool and much more fun.
The big problem with a lot of guys and their "vintage trucks" including my 48 as it sits is that they stick a car rear axle under them that isn't up to towing much more than a light utility trailer or tear drop trailer and all too often the rear suspension has been lightened up. I towed a loaded 16 ft U haul from McGregor Tx to Toppenish Wa behind my 48 with a 283, M21 Muncie and all too high Camaro 3.8 rear axle with N-50 14 tires. The tail wagged the dog the whole 2000 miles. That was nuts because I was a 28 year old fool who wanted to keep his old truck and not sell it and buy something more capable. I ended up sticking a pair of 1500 lb overloads on the back (coil springs clamped to the axle) and that helped a lot. On the other hand both of Torquewrenches appear to still be real trucks with real truck running gear and outside of going over the towing limit for said truck should handle towing within reason just fine. GM heritage center archives say that the load capacity of that Cameo is 1400 lbs but says nothing about towing capacity.
I pull my 16 foot flatbed behind my bone stock, unrestored, 54 Chevy pretty regularly. Haven’t hauled a car yet, but some pretty heavy scrap metal loads and it hasn’t missed a beat. It’s a factory Hydra-Matic truck and the super low gearing pulls really well.
Historically, I've never backed down from using an old car or truck unless I knew it was not up to snuff, and, shit, if it wasn't, it was either put right or put down. I've literally hauled cars out of scrap yards and replaced the brakes and fixed fuel issues and put them to daily driver use over the course of a weekend (think Derek of Vice Grip Garage) and never looked back. A couple of them were non-finishers for other reasons, but I'd say 90 percent of them served me well.
The primary issue is not if the truck is capable of doing the job or not, that can be corrected. The problem is a matter of insuring it for collision damage or theft while actually using it as a truck to pull a trailer. With the value of these old trucks rising as fast as they are, it isn't hard to have an old truck worth over $10,000, $20,000 or more. We can buy insurance to cover them under classic vehicle insurance for what ever they are worth without much problem, if we only want to drive them. The problem is, as soon as you hook a trailer to it, the Classic Vehicle Insurance goes right out the window. It doesn't matter who you try to buy the Classic Insurance from, no one will cover it for any agreed value, if you tow or haul something with it. As far as the insurance is concerned, it becomes just an old work truck of little value once a trailer gets connected. If you actually use the truck to tow a trailer, or haul something, the only insurance you can buy is liability insurance. If the truck got into a wreck with someone that has insurance, and its not your fault, maybe after a battle you may get part of the value you can prove the truck is worth, for the truck. If its in a wreck with someone without insurance, or its your fault, you don't get anything more then a wrecked truck. If someone steals it, or vandalizes it, you don't get anything for the truck, and probably nothing for the trailer, or its contents. Its treated like anything else with only liability insurance. Would you want, or could you afford, to take that loss just to pull the race car trailer with a cool old truck?
I towed for 2 years like this before I got a covered trailer. I just used the regular insurance but being a 1930 it was fairly cheap.
Why can't you just get full coverage like any other vehicle? High cost? I guess, I have full coverage on my old cars and it's not so bad, I'd have to dig up my policy to see for sure but I believe it's < $500 per year. For a $30k - 40k vehicle I think it's worth it. Even for my old jalopy that aint worth near that much. As far as it being a loss if you get into an accident, I was rear ended in my 47 coupe, the repair bill was close to 90% of the agreed value, the insurance company paid for the repairs with no problem, even waived the deductible, treated me like I was somebody special the whole time. Maybe it would be different if I was at fault?
I towed this behind this for thousands of miles behind this with 179 cu.in. six cylinder and 5 speed, over run brakes on the trailer only with no dramas. You just have to drive every vehicle around you as well to anticipate what they are going to do.
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