enclosed or open to haul a restored car 1,400 miles, is enclosed worth the money

i went enclosed four years ago and i will never tow a nice car open again, but let me tell you the part the enclosed guys leave out so you can decide honestly.

the good is obvious. no rock chips, no salt film, nobody at the gas station leaning on your fender, and you can leave the straps and a toolbox locked inside. for a show car going a thousand miles plus in winter it is the right answer.

the part nobody mentions is condensation. a sealed aluminum box with a warm car in it and a cold night outside will sweat, and that water lands on your car. i open the roof vents and i crack the side door an inch on an overnight, and the first winter i did not know that and i wiped a layer of dew off a black fender in a motel parking lot in Rapid City. it did not hurt anything but it taught me to vent the thing. so enclosed is not zero maintenance, it is a different short list.

i own both, so i have no dog in the fight. for your Chevelle going to Denver in november, rent the enclosed. here is the reasoning and it is not about rock chips.

it is the salt and the brine. I-70 across Kansas and into Colorado in november gets pretreated with magnesium chloride brine before every system that comes through, and that stuff is worse than rock salt because it stays wet and it creeps into every seam. your open trailer will deliver that car covered in a gray film that is now sitting on fresh paint and in the cowl and under the car for however long it takes the buyer to wash it. a stone chip you can touch up. brine working into a four-winter restoration while it sits in a driveway is the kind of thing you find in the spring.

and the buyer is paying real money for a show-finish car. it shows up in an enclosed trailer clean and it shows up on an open trailer looking like it drove itself there. that difference is worth more than 1,100 dollars at handoff, i promise you, because it sets the tone for whether he is looking for problems when he walks up to it.

i haul open for a living and i am going to agree with the enclosed guys for once, which my wife can confirm does not happen often.

everything i move is a running driver or a dealer unit and open is correct for that work all day long. a frame-off show car going to a retail buyer is a different job. the one thing i will add that nobody has said yet is the motel. on an open trailer your car sleeps in the parking lot where god and everybody can see it, and a Marina Blue 68 Chevelle is a billboard that says follow me home. in an enclosed box it is just a white trailer. i have had two catalytic converters cut off running drivers overnight at a truck stop and those were nobody's pride and joy.

if you were asking about a 90,000 mile Tahoe i would say throw it on the open deck and go. you are not. rent the box.

contrarian note so you have the whole picture before you spend the money. i have hauled open my whole life, including show cars, and the trick is a good cover and loading last. a breathable car cover made for trailering, strapped down so it does not flog the paint at 70, stops almost all of the chip risk. the enemy with a cover is wind getting under it and sanding the paint, so you tape the grommets and you run the straps right.

that said, a cover does nothing about the brine film winch_and_straps is talking about, and he is right about that. mag chloride is the real argument here, not stones. in july i would tell you to cover it and save the 1,100. in november on I-70 i would rent the box too. the season is doing most of the deciding for you.

if you ever do want to look at trailering covers, the better ones are sold by the big trailer makers direct, and a spec sheet from one like featherlite.com will at least tell you the real difference between a storage cover and one rated for towing. do not put a Costco car cover on a car at highway speed.

good thread and a good result. i will pin the short version in my head for the next person who asks, because this comes up every fall.

open is the right trailer for a car you are going to wash anyway. enclosed earns its money on fresh paint, long distance, winter brine, and a car worth stealing. the season and the buyer decide it more than the trailer does. and whichever you pick, vent an enclosed box overnight and cover a car on an open deck with something actually made for the wind.

one housekeeping note since laredo brought up the converter thefts. if you run open and overnight somewhere, back the trailer against a wall or another trailer so nobody can get under the car, and park under a light. costs nothing.