Car transport, towing and recovery are usually undertaken by a generic eightcar trailer over a low-cab truck, or your average towie with an open rollback. That is unless you‘re dealing with the upper echelon of the car market – where specialist service, care and discretion are valued above all else.

Photo: The body pushes size limits but is necessary to accommodate wide cars with doors that open upwards, not outwards.

Among those who are fortunate enough to own a car that can be considered rare, exotic, high performance or classic, there exists the need – every now and then – to transport that machine under the radar. It might be just imported for a discerning collector to be moved to its new marble-floored, climatecontrolled home. Or a highly Instagrammable supercar that must be trucked up to a main dealer for a teardown service. Or one that‘s suffered at the hands of a ham-fisted driver, on its way to one of a few specialist repairers – large insurance claim on the horizon. Whatever the situation, the owners of these cars often want them protected from the elements and kept out of the public‘s eye – and the reach of their grubby paws – while in transit.

Photo: Sides fold outwards to clear the car and create room for unconventional doors.

And that‘s where a company like Exotic Towing comes into the picture. One of a couple such specialist car transporters in Auckland, Exotic Towing is a relatively young company (started in 2017) with a quickly growing reputation. Owner and career towie Sar Khoshaba certainly has an appreciation for high-quality four-wheeled machinery – it‘s how he landed up becoming towie to the country‘s elite – and this is certainly reflected in the latest addition to his company‘s fleet. At its base it may be a simple 8-tonne Fuso Canter, but it‘s the attention to detail in this build that makes this truck the specialist piece of kit it is. Sar explains that getting the level of quality he wanted wasn‘t an overnight process – the whole build took eight months to complete. Then lockdown happened, just as it was ready to hit the road. “It was a very frustrating 13 months; I heavily invested money and time in the truck. I wasn‘t really sure about going ahead with the project in the first place – I wanted to buy the truck just months after I purchased Exotic Towing in 2018. But it happened and I‘m very happy with the result.” The truck came as a basic transporter from Japan, which Sar bought from Henderson Motors in Hamilton. Buying it was the easy part, finding a builder who was willing to take on the box conversion was not… After having been turned down by a few builders, Fruehauf took on the project, spending four months on the build. “Jeff Mear took it on and did it right.

Photo: Sar Khoshaba started towing in 2008 and is building Exotic Towing to be a leader in its niche segment of the industry.

It wasn‘t straightforward; everything I wanted was custom and the main concern for me was the size,” says Sar. With the need to accommodate all manner of exotic cars – some more than 2m wide and with doors that open up to twice the height of the car – the Canter pushes the limits of size. The deck and headboard were cut and widened a few inches each side, and the inside dimensions of the box are 2.4m wide and 2.1m high, with a variable length thanks to adjustable tailgate latches. Driving in the truck, one realises just how wide the box is. “We pushed the limit because we needed the inside space. It‘s 2.52m on the outside; the maximum we could go was 2.55. Getting all these sizes right was the hold-up for the project,” Sar says, explaining that it took a few months to convince the car manufacturers and dealers to share the basic dimensions of the largest cars he would need to fit into it. The numbers found online proved to be unreliable, so this was a step that couldn‘t be rushed. Many of these vehicles have vulnerable body parts such as wings, mirrors and spoilers made out of expensive carbon fibre that Sar just wasn‘t willing to mess with when loading the cars. “You don‘t want to spend a quarter of a million dollars and then find a car doesn‘t fit. I want to avoid touching the mirrors, as some of them are carbon fibre and very expensive,” he says.

Photo: Lockers house all the necessary accessories.

Photo: Custom-made seats round off the image.

Photo: Rear-view camera comes on with reverse gear, and can be switched on at any time.

With this in mind, the sliding sides help with getting in and out of the cars. They‘re easy to operate, can open from the front or the rear, and are designed to fold on the outside, not inside, so as to not drag along the cars. “Normal curtain siders operate slightly differently so this was the best option,” Sar says. With barely any ground clearance and more vulnerable carbon fibre in the firing line, it was imperative for the box to be as close to the ground as possible when loading the cars. It moves out virtually flat behind the truck and is helped by an extremely narrow ramp angle. There are lots of tow hooks and lashing points, each with 2.5-tonne capacity, and the hydraulic winch and four LED spotlights are conveniently operated by remote control. Sar‘s attention to detail goes further, with the use of high-quality Mac‘s wheel straps. “I use them because the wheels on these cars have special coatings. The straps are very soft and don‘t scratch the wheels. I put another rag around it if I still feel it‘s not good enough.” These are usually stored in one of the toolboxes located each side of the chassis (by Vehicle Construction and Maintenance, which did most of the fittings on the truck) that also house a low-profile jack, tools, and everything Sar would need for roadside assistance, breakdowns, unlocking, jump-starting, changing tyres, and recovery and shipping. As often happens when a vehicle needs recovery, the driver may need a lift in the tow truck. Again, the company‘s image and target market was kept in mind and a standard Canter interior just wouldn‘t do.

Photo: Very shallow ramp angle necessary for ultra-low cars.

Photo: The hydraulic winch and floor plate were standard fitment. Everything else around them has been added for the job.

Sar turned to RVE Vehicle Enhancement to custom-make the seats. “I‘d seen this style in utes before and wanted them in the truck. RVE hadn‘t done that before so it took them about two and a half months to design and install. The truck was off the road for the year so that was fine,” he says. Rounding off the build was a respray by Evans European Panel and Paint (incidentally, one of Exotic Towing‘s first and longest standing clients) in the same black as a 1980‘s Mercedes- Benz 190E, Peterson LED lighting installed by 24/7 Auto Electrical, and an Ali Arc bull bar (not yet fitted when we did our photoshoot). Sar says the truck has lost one tonne with the new body and 60 New Zealand all the other additions, but with a 5-tonne tare, he still has plenty of capacity for the types of cars he‘d have to accommodate. Sure, Exotic Towing caters to a very niche segment of the vehicle transport and recovery market, but that hasn‘t stopped Sar and his various suppliers from looking at every single detail from start to finish. This truck is certainly well designed for its purpose. “For the first time doing a project like this, thankfully everything worked out. There were a few issues along the way but it was off the road anyway, so everyone could take their time. I never put any pressure on anyone who worked on the truck because I wanted it to be done perfectly. Everyone who‘s seen it loves it. The guys from Fruehauf are looking forward to building the next one already,” Sar says proudly.

Photo: Canter‘s compact footprint practically doubles once the box is lowered and ramp dropped.