Odd that this is my first question on this forum......

Anyway, I'm thinking ahead to a future need for trailering the Mini and am concerned about approach/departure angles, as well as the risk of high-centering the car when loading on a trailer. I'm in no hurry, just trying to come up with the plan so I don't rush into a stupid purchase later.

I would like the open trailer to have some decent clearance from the road, though I realize that a lower deck will make it easer to load the Mini. The tilt-bed trailers I've seen seem like a good choice at first glance, but they sit REALLY low to the ground. Do any of you have experience with these types of trailers, or have you been ok with regular flatbed haulers? Anybody have clearance trouble when loading your Mini?

For general size considerations, I'm thinking about an 8'x16' (maybe even up to 8'x20' if the wallet can take it ) area with 10k# capacity. Dual axles, brakes on both... All that jazz. I know, I know.... That's mongo-big for the Mini, but it will afford me to haul my other toys.

 

I haven't done this myself but saw a guy loading a Civic do this. He put a floorjack under the trailer jack (still attached to truck) and pumped it waaay up. His ramps were the typical short (three feet?) ones and by jacking the nose of the trailer up like that, the entire trailer sort of became an extention of the ramps. The overall approach angle was much better than ramps alone. I would assume the longer the trailer, the less the approach angle will be.

offtopic:
I have a '74 Scout II 345/727, 2" 32's! It's rusting blissfully away though.

 

You don't need a 20' 10K pound axled trailer, but you already know that. I'm not one to talk as I've got an 18' 14K pound trailer that I use for my rock crawler, and the MINI if necessary.

Anyway, a regular flatbed is fine, you don't need a tilt trailer. Another option besides using a jack to lift up the front of the trailer, is to simply use two car ramps (like the kind used for oil changes). Place the car ramps at the rear wheels of the tow vehicle and drive the tow vehicle onto the ramps. This will raise the rear of the tow vehicle and the front of the trailer, in effect lowering the rear of the trailer and decreasing the angle at which your MINI needs to make it up onto the trailer. If you need a little more angle, you can place some wood (2x4, etc.) at the end of the trailer ramps. When you drive your MINI to the ramps, the wood will raise the front end a couple inches usually giving you enough clearance to then proceed onto the ramps.