History Vintage race car trailers.

There's a thread featuring old stock cars, and I believe a thread featuring vintage push vehicles. But is there a thread about the trailers that were used to haul the stock cars to the track? Just for shit's and giggles I'd like to slap an old stock car I have together and haul it to some local shows with my 48 Merc pickup. The problem is I couldn't possibly consider putting it on a new style trailer. I suspect most of the trailers used in the 40-60's used a single axle with no brakes and were made with an old vehicle axle? Let see some pics or here some ideas to keep it vintage.

 

Buy a modern trailer with electric brakes and dexter axles.
Then spend $$ on vintage style wheels, fenders, taillights to make it look old.

Safety and reliability is the number one priority

 

Yeah. You're probably right. We should all start driving modern 5 star safety rated vehicles too.

 

Mercedes Benz transporter from the '50s.

I'm still looking for a '60s photo I have of an Indy car coming to the track in the back of a pickup.

jack vines

 

The Brits did it safely.



The high dollar drag teams had really nice trailers!



this is probably more typical?



or

 

I have plans to build one for the little sprint car I'm putting together. Here are a couple of pics I have saved.

 

In my neck of the woods most of the roundy round guys would find a big old semi type carhauler and cut off the ramps adding axles and a tongue. I remember some early sprints and midgets had really swoopy trailers with elaborate wind cheating noses. One of the guys at our local dirt track carried his in on a hay wagon I imagine that got very interesting at times.

 

I bought some new axles with brakes and made this trailer from scratch about 5 years ago. You can buy a new trailer for less than I have in parts.

here's the build thread, others posted pics of their trailers also; http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...trailer-looking-for-ideas-or-dont-dos.421486/

 

This one must be fun to load.

 

'52 F3 - Good trick, hiding the tail lights in a shroud. That ought to keep them from getting rubbed off!

 

There's a difference between old style stuff that's well built and maintained, and the crap in your picture.

 

Those are Auburn knock off wheels on that red trailer. They are valuable on Auburns and terribly unsafe for a trailer.

 

who ya talking about.?

 

This one has always been a favorite of mine.
Not my photo, but IIRC, I saw this many years ago at a swap meet (on display) in Washington state.

 

At 9:56 there is an interview with Billy Lynch, he talks a little about his vintage hauler, pretty cool stuff!
You may have to copy and paste, sorry.

 

just curious, are you talking about my trailer picture?

 

no, there was another post that was deleted. Sorry for the confusion.

 

I built this one in about 1984. For the first five years it towed Rally Cars all over the US. Then it towed my Baja Race Truck for 3 years. Since then it has towed everything from Tri 5 Chevy's to a F-1 Pickup, A Nova to several Mustang's, My auto cross Falcon and a 1940 Ford truck. Most recently a V8 Chevy LUV truck from Colorado to California. Aside from having to replace one spindle when it hit a curb in a median in PA at about 40 MPH (driver might have been a tad bit tired) and a replacement of the leaf springs and bushings after about 120,000 miles it's been a pretty reliable trailer. And Yes it has 4 lug wheels (they were matched to the Rally car for convenience of multiple spares and free tires) and no it doesn't have brakes. It does have a cool tilt bed though.

 

I'd like to build a trailer for hauling a front engine dragster, while not traditional I was looking at the using stub axles. There is torsion and air bag designs...you can even get the bag jobs with a 4" drop Summit says. Make a nice loading/unloading height. Has anyone used them?

 

The 1st race car trailer we owned, back in 1975, was vintage when we bought it for $75! It was an old gas station drive on rack, with 2 axles welded to the bottom of it and two pieces of pipe welded together for the tongue. There were no springs (and no brakes) at all. I must say, it towed straight and it worked pretty good for the first 5 or 6 years we raced. By then I had a trailer built to my specs, which we used well past the end of our racing days, when I sold it to someone.

I'm not sure what happened to our hoist ramp trailer, but I suspect we probably sold it to some other up and coming racers for the same $75 we paid for it. Gene

 

My brothers car in 1958:

 

Cool thread!

 

That DO Fronty is now part to the Bill Smith/Speedway collection and will never be removed from the hauler. Got to see it when Crazy Chris owned it back in the 1970's, fantastic car. Bob

 

I want to build one of these 2 wheel trailers to tow my 3w behind my 59 el camino. what do you think? need to stay off I-65 if i do? run only about 50 MPH let me know what you think about the 2 w trailer.

 

^^^^^
This what I mean about a modern trailer made to look vintage . Well done!

I would always consider tandem purely for safety.
Getting decent load rated tyre for a single axle can be expensive.
Having a blowout on a car is bad enough...... try a single axle trailer.[it always ends in tears]

A Tandem axle trailer is easy to control in these situations.
Leaf spring single axle trailers are more prone to roll oversteer due to the deep arch and high front spring eye.
Roll oversteer is one of the causes of swaying

attached is photos of a lightweight [880lbs] trailer I built. It had no frame because the main runners were folded up from 2mm galv sheet into a uni-construction.
It is very strong , I had a 4800lb SUV on it.
This style would be easy to make "vintage looking"
]

 

I forgot to show that the ramps slide directly out from the rear [ they have height limiters attached to them ]
And the trailer tilts
It is a simple one-man easy to use trailer.