One of the challenges of owning a droid is transport. Not everyone has a Sandcrawler handy or can afford a fancy trailer, and most cars are too small.

When I went down to C4 in LA I removed his legs to fit him in the front seat of my Beetle, but I knew this was not a long term option and I needed to come up with a better solution.

Luckily we have an old 1994 Dodge Caravan that we use for hauling stuff around. It’s not in great shape and the wife has wanted to get rid of it for years, but I’ve resisted and it turns out the van is perfect for carrying R2 once the bench seats are removed.

I was tempted to build a winch system similar to Mike Senna’s, but my droid is much heavier and would probably require a welded frame. The side door of the van is very low to the ground and I decided to try a ramp system first and have R2 load/drive himself in instead. I bought an aluminum ATV ramp at Pep Boys and cut some plywood for the top.

Here’s a short video of us loading my R2 at R2-CCA this last weekend. I still need to get some thick carpet or maybe even plywood for the floor of the van to stop his feet sticking in some grooves in the floor of the van, but overall the loading is very simple.

It may look like I’m pushing R2 in the video, but he’s driving up the ramp under his own power.