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I noticed that questions on trucks are generally welcome on EL&U; yes, they are not for retired grammarians, but, maybe, some people could be interested in.

In the picture below we see a truck that in my language is called with the single word "bisarca". Translating "bisarca" with Italian-English dictionaries I found "transporter" (a large vehicle used to carry heavy objects) or "car transporter" (a large vehicle used to carry cars). But, to me, the former seems too general and the latter is formed by two words.

So, I'm wondering if a single English word exist to name this kind of trucks

enter image description here

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5  
Note that many, many single words in other languages are two (or more) words in English. So you can't always count on there being a single word translation for everything. There's usually a wellrecognised phrase you can use though. – Mr Lister Oct 20 '12 at 13:16
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Well, I wasn't expecting to come to this site to learn a new world in my native language :) Thanks, I did not know they were called bisarche! – nico Oct 20 '12 at 14:31
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If Wikipedia is to be believed, it's a Semi-trailer truck with a "car hauler" or "auto transport" semi-trailer. – Roddy of the Frozen Peas Oct 20 '12 at 16:52
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If this single word is found, you will never use it enough times to offset the number of words you wasted on writing this question. And, most people won't understand what you're talking about because that word will almost certainly be some trucker jargon. – Kaz Oct 20 '12 at 18:39
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@Kaz: our goal in life is not necessarily to minimize the total number of words we use. A thousand words spent here to come up with a less wordy phrase to use in "real life" can be well worth it. – LarsH Oct 20 '12 at 20:38
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6 Answers

up vote 17 down vote

I think Andrew Leach's answer may be UK-specific. I am in the US and have never heard them called transporters. Regionally, at least, we call them car carriers. Yes, that's two words, but there is no single-word equivalent. A Google image search for "car carrier" turns up a bunch of pictures similar to the search for "transporter lorry".

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I've called them car carriers ever since I was a kid and played with one of these. – J.R. Oct 20 '12 at 13:02
up vote 13 down vote

The single word is, in fact, transporter.

If you search Google Images for transporter lorry (adding lorry gets rid of VW Transporter vans) then by far the majority look like this from http://www.freefoto.com/preview/21-26-35/Car-Transporter. Note that the word car doesn't appear in the search, but does appear in most of the results.

Transporter

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I'm British, and I agree we call these things [car] transporters. But if you check the UK/US corpuses in NGrams for car transporter you'll see UK prevalence is 0.0000008%, where the corresponding US value is 5-6 times lower at 0.00000015%, so I guess we're looking at a UK/US difference here. – FumbleFingers Oct 20 '12 at 13:11
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Isn't every truck a transporter? – Kris Oct 20 '12 at 15:13
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@Kris, in the UK, if one "drives a transporter" then the picture shows what that is. Any other sort of transporter needs qualification. And other types of lorry have different names, too. – Andrew Leach Oct 20 '12 at 15:16
@Kris: Not broken-down ones. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 20 '12 at 18:44
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@EdwinAshworth: those would be broken-down transporters. :-) – LarsH Oct 20 '12 at 20:39
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up vote 8 down vote

The picture you show is a car transporter (at least in the UK...), and there is no single word for it.

It is often shortened to transporter as Andrew Leach mentions, but that also applies to other transporters, such as tank transporters, container transporters, cattle transporters, caravan transporters, and so on, so it is too generic to apply only to lorries that carry cars.

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up vote 4 down vote

Here's what Google Images search says for your image. (However, I'm located in Montreal; it may skew the results.)

Best guess for this image: auto carriers

screenshot

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Please fix that URL by putting a title on it...nobody likes looking at a wall of Base64. – nneonneo Oct 20 '12 at 22:02
@nneonneo Are you saying you prefer less the bitly version (which redirects to Google's ultra-long URL) as opposed to a hyperlink? – Fuhrmanator Oct 20 '12 at 22:27
No, I was saying that using a titled hyperlink (e.g. This link) instead of a naked URL might be better. But the bit.ly link works too. – nneonneo Oct 20 '12 at 23:03
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It is apparent from the results that the phrase refers to the transport service, not the vehicle. e.g. 'FS Auto Carriers is bringing service back to the car carrier industry' ... – Kris Oct 21 '12 at 3:58
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@Fuhrmanator - I apologise. – Matt Эллен Oct 22 '12 at 15:24
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up vote 3 down vote

I found several references to this kind of vehicle as car truck, while car transporter refers to a company that operates these vehicles.

As others have already stated, it's also called car transporter in some countries.

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up vote 2 down vote

Back in the 70's when CB radio was "in" and CW McCall had his hit Convoy, the Trucker Slang for the car carrier was

A Parkin' Lot

And along those same lines:

Bull Rack = Livestock carrier
Sand Box = Dump truck
Salt Shaker = Snow plow
Garbage Hauler = Refrigerated truck for carrying perishables
Cheese Wagon = Schoolbus

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