There was a time, before pickups became mainstream members of American families, when people commonly used passenger cars for towing purposes.

One of the artifacts I acquired to go with my 1950 Buick memorabilia collection was a two-page newspaper advertisement talking about a man and his wife who towed a four-ton, 35-foot-long trailer about 3,000 miles from Seattle to Alaska and back. It took some convincing, in fact, for the Canadian Customs authorities to even allow the car to enter the Alaska Highway. But the determined couple, James and Helen Post, were able to proceed with their trip as planned.

Their Buick was powered by a 248ci inline-eight mated to a Dynaflow Drive automatic transmission. It’s miraculous, really, that the car was able to hold its own on the grades, considering it was only rated at around 122 horsepower.

A quote from the couple in Buick’s advertisement says, “At Mile 533, we were told we could not pull the trailer over Mile 595. Trucks had had trouble getting over that one in the past. Starting up that grade, we stopped breathing. The speedometer hardly registered, but we got over the top… and everyone was speechless.” It took the Posts 17 days to get to their destination. The Los Angeles Times even published a story on the couples’ achievement on July 23, 1950.  

To be fair, many older cars were built with robust engineering: body-on-frame design, eight-cylinder power, and rear-wheel drive. Not long ago, a video was circulating on Instagram that showed a 1990s-era Buick Roadmaster station wagon towing a large pontoon boat out of a lake. Go Buick, again!

These days, many modern cars are not set up for towing. In fact, using such a vehicle to tow will usually void its warranty. People do commonly bolt Class I hitches to their cars for lightweight accessories like bike racks, but pulling an actual trailer puts strain on a car’s engine, transmission, brakes, and cooling system that it may not have been designed to withstand.

My 1994 Acura does have a section in its owner’s manual dedicated to towing instructions. I haven’t seen very many people put a Legend’s towing capabilities to the test, but my friend Alan did hook up a small boat to his a few years ago.

We’ve probably all seen someone lugging a bigger-than-appropriate trailer or cargo load down the freeway using a car. But could you imagine anyone hooking a 35-foot-long camp trailer up to a brand-new Buick and towing it to Alaska? I suppose anything is possible!