What’s the Heaviest Thing You’ve Ever Towed?

I was hoping to answer this prompt with a really cool specific example but I’m having a hard time remembering what, exactly, is the biggest thing I’ve ever had on a trailer. I’ve pulled a bunch of different boats and a few cars on various trailers in my personal life. But I think my max weight number would have been at one of the many heavy-duty truck towing demos I’ve been to in my years of car reviewing.

Pretty sure I lugged something like 30,000 pounds on a gooseneck hitch around Ford’s proving grounds in Romeo, Michigan last year. Though my favorite corporate-sponsored towing spectacle is still the “Toyota Tundra tows a space ship” stunt from all the way back in 2012. Remember when Toyota pulled the Space Shuttle Endeavor around LA?

As far as my own long-range towing experience goes, I think dragging my Scout Traveler (about 5,000 pounds) on a U-Haul rental trailer (about 2,000 pounds) on the hitch of a rental truck from California to New York in 2022 is my most major tow job so far. Crossing the Vail Pass with that setup was ridiculous—we were on wide-open throttle just watching the speed drop as we crested the Rocky Mountains. We were down to about 25 mph in the right lane with flashers on by the time we hit the downhill section; that poor rental truck’s transmission was probably about a billion degrees.