Having bought the truck of our dreams in California, we were next faced with how to get it from there to Minnesota, the start of our trip, without having to take the better part of a week to do it ourselves.

This ended up being pretty simple, actually, but the amount of “DIY” is fairly limited.  You need a broker who is reasonably communicative, and they need to organize you a responsible, insured etc trucker/trucking company to collect your car and deliver it.

It typically isn’t possible to skip the broker phase, although in some ways this would make life easier and cheaper.   Firstly, as a private individual you theoretically don’t have the domain knowledge to sort the good truckers from the bad ones.  Secondly, you don’t have access to the so-called Central Dispatch car logistics clearing house.  Annoying, but not surprising – it seems like a bit of old-school market protectionism.

Since the “disruption” phase of the internet economy hasn’t hit Central Dispatch yet, we were left with using a middle man.  And they did fine!  Ship A Car Direct was very attentive, and while not necessarily the cheapest, did their job adequately and hit earlier dates than I expected.  The trucker they hired was reasonably professional – see featured photo for his equipment, although with another car.  It’s amazing that they haul SUVs across country with a Dodge RAM.

Thus the car is waiting for us in Minnesota…for the very DIY-intensive modification phase.  Flying there in one month!  Excited.