Using a classic vehicle to tow a boat is one of those things that's fun to talk about but horrible to put into practice.
Old school towing vehicle revisited!
Recently I made a thread about a cheap, reliable, and capable vehicle to tow my 19' Bayliner with a grand total weight of no more than 3k lbs.
I got talking to my dad about it earlier, and being that he was and always was a fan of Vista Cruisers, suggested I get something like from the '70s that can be found as a fixer upper pretty cheap (below $2k) and that would actually increase in value.
The classic picture of a Vista Cruiser or Electra Estate or full size Caddy towing a 30' Airstream Land Yacht in my head makes sense. A 445 or 500 CI would move things easily
What do you guys think? As mentioned I had in mind a Vista or Custom Cruiser, Electra Estate, maybe a Ford Country Squire or whatever the Mercury version was.
I suppose an Electra 225, Fleetwood, Deville, etc would do fine too. Would a boattail Riviera or a flippin Eldorado convertible be okay? Or Mark IV? Toronado? I mean hell they've definitely got the engine and trans to do it. Wheelbase? Heck aren't they the same as modern 3/4 ton trucks these days? I don't know the factory towing capacities of these things but I figure as long as they have front discs they should be just fine, right?
I got talking to my dad about it earlier, and being that he was and always was a fan of Vista Cruisers, suggested I get something like from the '70s that can be found as a fixer upper pretty cheap (below $2k) and that would actually increase in value.
The classic picture of a Vista Cruiser or Electra Estate or full size Caddy towing a 30' Airstream Land Yacht in my head makes sense. A 445 or 500 CI would move things easily
What do you guys think? As mentioned I had in mind a Vista or Custom Cruiser, Electra Estate, maybe a Ford Country Squire or whatever the Mercury version was.I suppose an Electra 225, Fleetwood, Deville, etc would do fine too. Would a boattail Riviera or a flippin Eldorado convertible be okay? Or Mark IV? Toronado? I mean hell they've definitely got the engine and trans to do it. Wheelbase? Heck aren't they the same as modern 3/4 ton trucks these days? I don't know the factory towing capacities of these things but I figure as long as they have front discs they should be just fine, right?
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Mainly because it's a '70s wagon... I mean, seriously. A 30+ year old vehicle to tow a boat? I'll pass.Why would it be horrible to put into practice? Most of the 70's wagons had disc brakes and came pretty loaded from the factory.
My family had a 1973 Chevy impala station wagon when I was a kid and they used it to pull a camper all the time. It had a 454 with a turbo 400 tranny. It had pwr windows, locks, seats, cruise, air, tilt. It got like 10 mpg but could pull anything a truck could. It weighed over 5,000 lbs too so it wasn't like the trailer was going to move it around.
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