Loading your beast into the car?

[John Clarke]

Generally I'll use blocks, soft materials and a heighten fear of foreboding.
I also carry a spare wheel in the well, these days car manufactures may give you the space to carry a spare, but only offer a pathetic tyre foam filler device, leaving a large void under the boot carpet only reinforced with card board. It may be strong enough for the weekly shop but I find the thought of something more substantial underneath a little more calming.
A van would be great but I'd have little use for it 95% of the rest of the time and the wife has to keep up her appearances.
I have never contemplated a trailer. Too much bounce and it would be like putting you kids in a side car.

[Matt Fidler]

Hi,
New owner here. Well I will be come Wednesday. Interesting post and helpful. My worry is the drop after the ramp. I’ve bulked the boot out with picnic blankets and lots of rubber car mats however the Audi A5 hatchback has a bit of a drop. Hoping these ramps will be ok?

[Adrian Harris]

They're very similar to the ends of the ramps in my first picture.

My sister found me a small pallet which I then shaped to fit in the back of the Mondeo, so there wasn't much of a drop.

When we took the Sherman BARV to Normandy, I removed the pallet so that the tank would fit under the boot cover.
I then just took a few pieces of scrap 4x4 wood to make a step the tank could use to climb out of the boot.

Adrian.

[Stephen White]

With a ramp like that, you might also consider using some anti-slip tape such as this, cut in strips across the tread or strips of rubber.

It's not foolproof but helps.

I wrote a Knowledge Base Topic on this subject, which has a lot about transporting our models and securing them in a vehicle, here:

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=5798

[Matt Fidler]

Great idea. I’ll get some.

[Robert E Morey]

Definitely block the tracks front and rear to keep model from moving. I use 3x 3 post material cut into 45 degree wedge. I have F150 pickup and use wooden sled once in the bed. The sled has blocks etc to keep tank from moving. The sled also allow the tank to be pulled easily forward (toward rear) for unloading. To get into truck - hydraulic lift and portable ramps just like the images already posted.

You want to prevent that beast from coming forward in case of hard braking required! In my case I don't want rear or front of tank smashing into truck bed.

Bob

[Gerhard Michel]

Well, my second pic shows (not very good) my kind of fastening the tank in the boot of my Audi. There are 2 movable fastening points for suitcases, but they were not tight enough to hold a tank. Therefore I connected 2 solid steel fasteners to the body of my car to replace these hooks. A steel rope is spanned out between them, and 2 snap hooks taking a load of 250 kgs each at the tow eyes fix the tank against rolling forward. Some wooden beams prevent the tank from rolling back, and so it is fixed for normal loads (hoping no heavy traffic accident will occur). So my tanks are moved over more than 100 kms to events like Reinholds tank meeting in Hausen.

Armortek models have tow eyes that are loadable enough for this kind of fixing; my other models like the shown King Tiger are modified to endure this too.

[Christoffer Ahlfors]

Here is some more:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=7827

[William Gardeniers]

[John Clarke]

Decisions decisions, 1:1 or a 1:6 scale Armortek
I know which one I'd rather load up.

[simon_manning]

Thanks for posting John , very interesting, regards simon manning.