Container Packing – Madman’s Tetris
Cars hanging over other cars? Yeah. All the time.
It's pretty common knowledge that cars shipped from Japan didn't drive to their final destination. So, that means the car was shipped somehow.
When shipping cars from Japan, there is a 'stuffing' and 'destuffing' fee, which is a fee to get some one to put your car in, then later take your car out of a shipping container. The fee is a few hundred dollars both times.... now that seems like a lot.... Until you see what the containers look like when it's all said an done.
The serial numbers mark which car is which, also telling us what they are!
I took these images from Brave Auto's site (here and here - worth a read!) where they are discussing half cuts (a post on it's own). In short, one of the cars is cut in half in the container. You can see in the images that cars hang from ropes over other cars. This is to utilize all the possible space in the container to bring down the shipping costs per car.
While talking about container shipping cars, Mark at Brave Auto mentioned that it's generally easy to get the cars into the container, but quite difficult to get the cars OUT of the container without damaging them. This surprised me, but after thinking about it.... you're lowering a 2-3 ton car which is hanging dangerously close to other cars.... it's a recipe for disaster! So, Brave auto tries to leave room in the container even though another car could be shoehorned into the container. Doing this lowers the chances that a car is damaged while putting the cars in or taking the cars out.