I'm toying with bringing the $50 SAAB to the Challenge this year, and am trying to figure out what it will cost to get the car from Vancouver WA to Gainesville FL without driving 2,938 miles. Anybody have room on a trailer headed east? 
I'm toying with bringing the $50 SAAB to the Challenge this year, and am trying to figure out what it will cost to get the car from Vancouver WA to Gainesville FL without driving 2,938 miles. Anybody have room on a trailer headed east?
On the back of trailers Uship-style is the cheapest way across land.
For reference, coast-to-coast shipping with a trucking company is about $6k.
In the past, when I have looked at getting MGBs shipped form California to Detroit, the cheap rates have been about $800.
What I would warn you about is the large delivery window that a lot of the less expensive guys seem to have; like give or take a few weeks.
Cost me $850 on an open trailer to get my non-running Comet from Seattle to Baltimore last year. I just went online and started asking brokers how much. Average quote was $1000, but it ranged from $750-1200.
I shipped a car from OR to FL and it was ~$850. That was "port to port" though, not "door to door". I'll make you the same offer I made Nashco with his Honda Challenge car. I live in Gainesville, and, if you do end up deciding to ship the car here, I would be happy to receive it and stash it at my house until you arrived to collect it. I handled the reverse shipping scenario for him too, once the Challenge was over.
In reply to dyintorace:
Thank you, If this works out I may take you up on that. There is something kind of amusing about contemplating spending $1700 to ship a $50 car across the country twice. 
It would be cheaper to fly in, by a "last minute challenger" car in or around Gainesville and then fly home. You should be able to easily sell the car to recoup some of the cost.
It would be far more epic to drive a $50 car cross country and back with a seven year old 
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XLR99 wrote: It would be far more epic to drive a $50 car cross country and back with a seven year old
That would make a better story for the magazine as well...
man, if I were single I'd take vacation and charge you the gas money plus a case or two of redbull and I'd have it there in 3 days 
The wife and I are flying out west in October. Maybe I can convince her we want to fly into WA instead of Vegas and drive back east.
In reply to Wally:
In a stranger's untested $50 car? Your wife must be more adventurous than mine.
She is no stranger to bad decisions, I'm one of them.
I put it up on uShip. Cheapest bid so far is $1450 one way. 
That's only $600 or so in fuel and you should be able to cover 500 miles/day in a SAAB without much difficulty.
Drive it. Document it. Have great story for a lifetime.
The current plan is to drive it there, but I'm not sure I can get away with taking the time to drive it back too. I'm also not sure I can spend $1,450 to ship it back.
In reply to bgkast:
If it doesn't need to be back in a hurry, I'm sure we could set up a $50 SAAB relay of GRM'ers, where it's driven 25-100 miles per a person with a friend following or meeting them to drive it back. Maybe it could see some auto and or rallycross action at various locations on it's way back. It might need a short tow for some stretches, due to lack of members in an area, or a member not being bale to get a ride back after their drive. Ask everyone who takes a turn behind the wheel to fill up the tank before dropping it to the next person and to stick $5-10 into the glovebox for the experience of the driving the $50 former methhead car. Then if it needs a tow from a member, they get to take the current glovebox pot as their bounty and the process restarts.
Double bonus points if it gets to Mr. Regular for a review in it's travels.
In reply to captdownshift:
Hmmm, that's a very interesting idea. I'll have to consider it and try to figure out how insurance would work.
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