About Lopes Express Shipping
Lopes Express Shipping is a family-run motor carrier. We own the trucks and we employ the drivers who carry your car up and down that lane. One road. Both directions. All season.
Marcus Lopes started in auto transport back in 2011. A phone, a pen, and a route he already knew: the run between Florida and New England. He was not trying to build a big company. He was trying to do one job right and get paid for it.
The work found its rhythm with the seasons. In the fall, people head south and they would rather not drive the car down themselves. In the spring, the same people head north. Some of them called back the next year. Then they gave the number to a neighbor. That is how this grew, one season at a time.
Today Lopes Express Shipping is a family-run carrier with 7 trucks. The drivers are our employees. When your car is on the deck, it is on our deck, and the man driving it gets his paycheck from us. That is the whole difference, and it is not a small one.
For years, the inspection at pickup was done on paper. A clipboard, a diagram of a car, a pen, and a carbon copy that faded in somebody's glove box. It worked until it did not. Paper gets lost. Paper gets wet. Paper does not help anybody six months later.
So we moved the inspection onto a digital platform. Every vehicle gets a Bill of Lading that is inspected and signed at pickup, and inspected and signed again at delivery, by the driver and by you, and the record lives in the system instead of in a truck cab. Since we went paperless, more than 15,000 vehicles have been documented in that platform. The loads from the paper years are not in there, and we are not going to count them. We tell you what we can actually show you.
We average around 98 vehicles a week, and every one of them is on the same road. We carry motor vehicles and nothing else. We stay on the I-95 corridor between Florida and New England and we run it in both directions all season. It is a smaller business than it could be. It is also the reason a person answers the phone when you call.
A lot of companies will tell you they can move your car anywhere. That is an easy thing to say when you do not own a truck. We only sell the road we actually drive.
Running one lane is not something we apologize for. It is the product. Here is what it means on a Tuesday morning, when your car is sitting in the driveway and the truck is due.
Nothing about this is complicated. It is just what happens when we own the trucks that run Florida to New England.
Our drivers run Florida to New England and back, week after week, season after season. They know the exits a full-size car hauler can use, the streets it cannot get into, and where to meet you when your street will not take one. Your car is not somebody's first trip.
On a load board, the truck that carries your car south may be somewhere else entirely by spring. Our trucks turn around and drive north. Because the same equipment runs both directions all season, the return trip is a real trip on a real route, not a favor somebody has to go find for you in April.
Small office, same voices, before your car is on the truck and after. The person who books the job is the person you get when you call back on day three to ask where the driver is. Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern, in English or Portuguese.
Motor vehicles are the only thing that goes on our decks. Every ramp, strap and ratchet on that truck is there for one purpose, and the driver has used them on a car like yours more times than he can count. Nobody on our crew is learning your vehicle on the job.
Most of the companies you will find when you search for auto transport are brokers. A broker owns no trucks and employs no drivers. It is a sales office with a phone system and a website. That is legal and it is common, and it is not what we are. Lopes Express Shipping is a licensed and insured motor carrier. USDOT 3013626, MC-30467.
Here is how the broker side actually works. You call, you get a price, you put down a deposit. Your car is then posted on a load board, which is a digital board where independent truck owners shop for freight. Your car sits on that board until some driver, a stranger to you and usually to the broker too, decides the money is worth the trip. If nobody takes it at the price you were quoted, the price has to go up, because the only way to get your car moved is to make it pay better than the other cars sitting on the same board. That is why the number you were told on Monday can be a different number on Thursday, after they already have your deposit and your keys are the next thing on the list.
We do not have that step. We own the trucks that run Florida to New England, and the drivers work for us. There is no deposit, because we are not holding your money while we look for somebody to do the work. You pay on delivery, when the car is in front of you and the Bill of Lading gets signed the second time. The number we give you is the number on that document, unless you change the job itself, a different vehicle, a different address, and then we tell you before anything moves.
The company in four lines
On the Florida to New England lane since
2011. Fifteen years on this road.
Trucks we own, with drivers on our payroll
7
Vehicles documented in our digital inspection platform
15,000+
Licensed motor carrier
USDOT 3013626, MC-30467
Door-to-door pickup and delivery, subject to what a full-size car hauler can legally and safely reach. If a street is too narrow or the branches are too low, the driver and the customer agree on a nearby spot to meet.
Our equipment
Real photos of our own rigs on this lane, not stock images.
Every photo on this page is our own equipment on our own lane. A broker has nothing to show you here, because a broker owns nothing to photograph.
Call or text (941) 205-0012, or send us the year, make and model, the two ZIP codes, and the month you want to move. We come back with a price and a window. No deposit, and nothing is due until your car is handed back to you.
LOPES NEVER STOPS
