I'm just curious how most of you guys "get around". What kind of vehicle do you use for transporting your equipment? How do you cram everything in? Room for passenger(s)? Do you consider these things when shopping for a vehicle? Do you have a separate vehicle specifically for this purpose?
Personally I don't have a ton of money to be too picky, but I have an '08 PT Cruiser that works well. I load everything in a very specific way so that everything lies flat enough that I can see out the back window, and not risk things flying up at me if I have to stop suddenly. Having broken two rear windows on two different vehicles over the years, I learned to NEVER stand speakers up during transport. Fool me twice...
It's also nice that since I use the front seat for the computer and two of my totes, I have a perfectly polite and reasonable excuse not to give anyone a ride home (it comes up a lot in my little town). Side note, back in 2011 I was DJing about 2 blocks from my house (driving a Ford Windstar at the time) and an old friend was stuck with no ride... and he lived on the other side of town. Let's just say the ride back home after dropping him off was... eventful... and expensive... my own fault of course, but had I not given him a ride home I would have only been on the main road for exactly one block. I know I should have gotten a ride home myself, trust me lesson learned...
When I was working with Alicia (former business partner) she did the driving (partly due to my... indiscretion in '11). She has a Chevy HHR (side note: GM poached the designer of the PT Cruiser to design the HHR) which is a bit roomier and had the benefit of tinted windows (my PT does not -- yet).
Also: do you "brand" your vehicle in any way? I personally think that's risky, but I know some local DJs with a Trailblazer and a Minivan (two particular friends) with vinyl logos that, to me, basically scream "BREAK INTO ME I HAVE DJ EQUIPMENT!" I have another friend with an Explorer and a trailer - he does larger gigs and sometimes sound reinforcement for bands, and his logo is plastered all over the trailer (but not the explorer, and he keeps the trailer in a garage when not working).
I don't do that, and I plan to tint the rear windows because when spring/summer hits I'll likely keep the equipment in the car full time rather than unloading and reloading it at home every weekend. The Windstar was nice for that, very inconspicuous, but that was my ex's... The PT does have a factory alarm of course.
Down the road I would like a larger vehicle - another former business partner had a Blazer that was nice for that - so that I can keep even more "spare" stuff on hand. The PT barely holds my absolute necessities, an extra speaker would be out of the question (I use the 2 Harbingers and one old S3 brand speaker I know not much about, other than it handles my no-name amp quite well as an extra bass speaker, facing backwards in the corner). And my folding table won't fit, I rely on (and sometimes forget to ask) that the venue has a table for me.
Ideally my next car/van/SUV would be a "second" vehicle, so I could keep the equipment (and table!) in the "DJ" vehicle, and keep the PT for grocery shopping and other day-to-day stuff (and have more room/less weight).
I like my two-thousand-and-late PT Loser (great mileage, low deck height, inconspicuous) for now... got it dirt cheap and replaced a blown head myself, so less than $1000 total investment... but I'd like to keep it as my daily driver and get something else just for DJing.
So I guess my real question, out of curiosity and completely unrelated to VDJ, is: what do you drive?
