Towing a classic car on a trailer: licence, weights, speed limits and the plate

A classic that does not run, is not taxed, or is simply too precious to drive across the country travels on a trailer, and towing one is governed by a set of rules that changed more recently than most people realise. The licence rule in particular is still quoted in its old form by people who last checked a decade ago.

Here is the current position, from the licence through the weights to the details that get trailers stopped.

The licence rule changed in December 2021

For years the received wisdom was that anyone who passed their driving test after 1 January 1997 could only tow a trailer up to 750kg without passing a separate trailer test. That was true. It is not true any more.

Since 16 December 2021, a driver whose car licence was issued on or after 1 January 1997 can tow a trailer up to 3,500kg maximum authorised mass without a separate test. The entitlement is category BE, and DVLA adds it to the driver record automatically. If your photocard does not show BE, you still have it; the card simply predates the change.

Drivers who passed before 1997 keep the older, broader entitlement, which usually allows a vehicle and trailer combination up to 8,250kg gross. Heavier combinations than that need a provisional C1+E, a lorry theory test and a C1+E test, which is a different world entirely.

So for the purposes of towing a classic on a car transporter, the licence is very unlikely to be your problem. The car doing the towing is.

The weight that actually bites

The 3,500kg cap is a licence entitlement. Long before it matters, two other figures will.

The first is the towing vehicle’s maximum towing weight, stated in its handbook or on its plate. The second is its gross train weight, which is the fully loaded car plus the fully loaded trailer, and which must not be exceeded.

Consider the arithmetic. A twin-axle car transporter weighs perhaps 600 to 800kg empty. Put a 1,100kg MGB on it and the laden trailer is around 1,800kg. A Jaguar saloon or a Land Rover takes it past 2,000kg. That is beyond the rated towing weight of a great many ordinary cars, which is why classic owners who tow regularly tend to own a four-wheel-drive or a large estate, and why hiring a transporter often comes with a requirement that the tow vehicle be something specific.

Two further limits are worth knowing. Any trailer weighing over 750kg loaded must have working brakes, which every car transporter does. And dimensions are capped: a trailer behind a car may be no wider than 2.55 metres and, where the towing vehicle is 3,500kg or under, no longer than 7 metres excluding the drawbar.

The old 85 per cent guideline, which suggested keeping the laden trailer below 85 per cent of the tow car’s kerb weight, is not a legal rule. It is sensible advice about stability, and it remains sensible.

Speed limits and the lane you cannot use

Towing changes the speed limits that apply to you, and they are enforced.

• Motorways and dual carriageways: 60 mph.
• Single carriageways: 50 mph.
• Built-up areas: 30 mph, or 20 mph in Wales where that default applies since September 2023.

Those apply regardless of how light the trailer is or how capable the car.

On a motorway with three or more lanes, a vehicle drawing a trailer must not use the right-hand lane except in prescribed circumstances. On a two-lane motorway there is no outside-lane restriction, but the 60 mph limit still holds.

The plate, the lights, the cable

Three small rules account for most roadside stops.

The number plate. The trailer must display the same registration number as the towing car, fixed at the back, made to the ordinary plate standard and lit at night. Trailers used only in the UK do not need their own registration; the DVLA trailer registration scheme exists for taking a trailer abroad to countries that require it, which is a different question.

The lights. Everything on the trailer must work: position lamps, stop lamps, indicators, the rear fog lamp and the plate light. The government’s own guidance puts it simply as checking there is no damage to the lights and that they are all working correctly. The connector is the usual culprit.

The breakaway cable or secondary coupling. You must use one. On a braked trailer, the breakaway cable is arranged so that if the trailer separates from the car it pulls the trailer’s brakes on. On a light unbraked trailer, a secondary coupling such as a chain keeps the two connected. It takes seconds to attach and is routinely found unattached.

The towbar. If the towing car itself was first used on or after 1 August 1998, its towbar must be type approved. A pre-1998 tow car, including a classic used as the tow vehicle, is exempt from that requirement.

No test for the trailer, but the responsibility is yours

An ordinary overrun-braked car transporter of 3,500kg or less needs no MOT or annual test. The categories of trailer that do need annual testing are the heavy commercial ones, and a car trailer does not fall into any of them.

That does not mean nobody is responsible. Tyres need the 1.6mm tread the law requires of the car, lights must work, brakes and the coupling must be in order, and a trailer that has sat for a year under a hedge should be checked with the same suspicion as a car that has. Trailer tyres age in exactly the way classic car tyres do, and a trailer tyre that fails at 60 mph with a car on board is an expensive afternoon.

Loading a classic so it arrives

The rules stop at the coupling. The craft is in the loading, and a few habits matter.

Drive or winch the car on so that the weight sits slightly forward of the trailer axles, which keeps the nose weight on the towball positive and the combination stable; a tail-heavy trailer is what produces the snaking that frightens people off towing for life. Strap the car down by its wheels or by proper chassis points, never by suspension components or bumpers, and check the straps again after the first few miles once everything has settled. Close the windows, secure anything loose inside, and if the car is a convertible, put the hood up or take it off; a hood that inflates at 60 mph does not survive.

None of that is law. All of it is the difference between a classic arriving and a classic arriving damaged, which for a car that cannot be driven to the destination is the whole point of the exercise.

Choosing whether a car should travel on a trailer at all, rather than being driven, is part of the larger question of recommissioning a car that has stood, where the honest answer is often that the trailer is the right call.