I'm a photographer and currenlty have a compact SUV, Ford Escape. It can fit all my stuff with the dipslay racks on the roof, but it's tight and I'm not sure I'd want to travel long distance with it fully packed. I've been thining about a minivan and was just wondering what others use and their experience.
Thanks.
John
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Hi and I had to show my trailer that I bought last year for shows. Its a 1969 10 foot camper. I def agree that it is so wonderful to have a dedicated vehicle that you keep loaded and ready to go. I pull out the two beds and stack my bins on them, the tent slides under the beds, etc. I sleep in here all year long. My camper pulls great, saves a lot of hotel money, no extra car insurance or motors to keep up, pulls and looks great, too.
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Thanks for the info, especially on the Ford Transit Connect. We've recently become full time RV'ers, with all the art show "stuff" in the F450, tools and supplies inside the 5th wheel and quite frankly after only doing 3 shows with the F450 (dually) we've decided we need to bite the bullet and get a second vehicle. Love the towing capacity of the F450, hate the loading with some stuff in the crew cab, some stuff in bed, worrying about if the stuff in the bed will get wet when it rains and quite frankly not having enough room for us and everything else when we have a same day load in. Loading in and out of some shows with a truck that big has also been a challenge, that extra set of wheels had us holding our breath as we executed a 10 point turn to get the truck out of a load in area. You would have laughed if you could have seen us at load out with all our stuff, including some on my lap as we drove away from the show.
I guess I'll be following Dale all over the country in the second vehicle which will be loaded for shows while he drives the F450 and tows the 5th wheel. We had hoped to be down to one vehicle, but we just have too much "stuff" to make that practical. Just found a 2010 Ford Transit at a dealership close to our next destination, trying to see if we can get in there and make something happen.
Because of some of the muddy fields some shows can be held on, I found 4 wheel drive to be a must have.
I have a Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LTZ 4WD. I am glad to hear that the 4WD will come in handy. It has an extended cab and the middle sized bed. I had to buy the Armstrong stackable display panels because the bed was 2 inches too short for the full size panels. When we finally get accepted to a show I will be putting on a Leer camper top and find a lightweight (22'-24') camper. For my truck, I want to keep the trailer and cargo to 6000 pounds or less. Most of the paintings will ride in the extended portion of the cab behind the seats. We hope to be able to use the camper for additional storage, if that is OK with Radar, our crazy cat.
Does anyone who has already been doing shows see any reason why this plan may not work?
Last spring, I decided to take the plunge and get a dedicated show vehicle. I didn't have a lot to spend, so I went looking on Craigslist. I found a 14-year-old Dodge Ram 1500 van for $2400. It had 90,000 miles on it and was in decent shape. I have a brother who owns a car repair shop, so I had him give it a good going-over before I bought it. It ran like a workhorse all season last year. Like someone else described, it's basically just a big metal box on wheels. My biggest concern was fitting it in my garage during our Chicago winter. It does fit -- but only just! :-D
I'm posting mainly to second the idea that for doing do art shows on any kind of regular basis, you can't beat owning a dedicated vehicle. I love not having to worry about forgetting something important, not worrying about packing and unpacking the thing between shows (or driving around with all my art stuff in my personal vehicle when all I'm doing is going to the 7-11), and the fact that I'm not beating up my personal vehicle trying to stuff everything in and driving it over bumpy fields and whatnot. I also like that I can use it as a mobile storage facility and not have to keep piles of art show equipment all over the place.
So even if you're only going to do six shows a year (or whatever), you might want to think of trying to find something used online. It worked a treat for me!
I put over 25,000 miles on my rig. Toyota Tundra 2007 with a V-8 and a 16' trailer, dual axle. It's big. It gets 13MPG with a tailwind. It holds a lot of stuff, and can stay out on the road for six weeks at a time without having to return to base to restock.
HI John, I using a Town Country Mini Van. It gives about 27 miles per gal when van is full. The draw back of the mini van is you do not have that much room to grow. If you can get a cargo van but the gas will kill you.
HI I am so glad they re-designed the engine, I love my TC, but I really wish it had a V6. I will keep this in mind when it comes time to trade it in in a few years. It really is a nice vehicle to drive.
It's still going to be a 4 cylinder, however it will have a 6 speed automatic transmission. I found the current 4-speed to be annoying. It did a lot of gear searching. The increased power and 6-speed should help. http://www.ford.com/commercial-trucks/transitconnect-commercial/2014/
Interesting, I don't know much about the technical aspects of cars/trucks, but as long as it gets me and my art where we need to be, I'm happy! :-)
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