Our Long Beach office arranges open and covered transport to all 50 states, with pickup planned around I-710, I-405 and SR-22 and a real person answering the local number.
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Long Beach is home to the second-busiest port in the country, which makes it the single most carrier-dense pickup point in Southern California. Trucks delivering port vehicles leave empty every day and are eager for outbound loads, so Long Beach customers see short waits and strong pricing on almost any lane.
We ship everything from port imports and dealer stock to the classic and custom cars that come out of Bixby Knolls and Naples. Military families at the Seal Beach naval station and Los Alamitos, students at Cal State Long Beach, and the many people relocating from downtown's high-rises all keep the office busy. Downtown and Belmont Shore streets are tight, so drivers typically meet customers at larger lots near Ocean Blvd, the Traffic Circle or Long Beach Blvd.
Times are from pickup, not from booking, and vary with season and weather; you get a firm window at dispatch.
Long Beach is where a large share of the vehicles sold in the western United States first touch land. The Port of Long Beach and the adjacent Port of Los Angeles handle more cars than any other complex in the country, and the carriers that move those cars inland — to processing centers, rail ramps, dealers and buyers — are the same carriers that serve Long Beach residents. They run the 710 north, the 405 east and west, the 22 into Orange County, and they leave the port empty every day looking for a return load. For a Long Beach customer shipping a car to Phoenix, Houston, the Bay Area or the East Coast, that return-load economy is the single biggest advantage of living here: more trucks, shorter waits, better prices.
Golden State Auto Transport's Long Beach office is on West Broadway in the downtown core, a few blocks from the waterfront and minutes from the 710. When you request a quote on this page, your details go to licensed, insured carriers already working the port corridor, and a coordinator on the local (562) number handles your shipment from pickup to delivery.
Long Beach is a big city with very different neighborhoods, and the first question for any shipment is whether a 75-to-80-foot car carrier can reach your street. Downtown's high-rises, the alleys and narrow blocks of Belmont Shore and Belmont Heights, the canals and bridges of Naples, the tight streets of Rose Park and Alamitos Beach — none of them take a hauler. In those neighborhoods, the driver meets you at a larger lot: the Pike and the Convention Center area downtown, the lots near the Traffic Circle, the commercial stretch of Long Beach Boulevard, or the Marina Pacifica and Marketplace lots on the east side. It's a few minutes' drive and it keeps the car out of a dangerous maneuver.
Bixby Knolls, Lakewood Village, Los Altos, North Long Beach and the wider streets of East Long Beach and Los Cerritos are a different story: door-to-door pickup works well there. Signal Hill's commercial grid and the industrial blocks near the 710 and the port are easy. Tell your coordinator your cross streets and you'll get a straight answer.
A unique part of the Long Beach office's work is vehicles coming off ships. Importers, brokers, and individuals who shipped a car from overseas need it moved from the port's processing center to a dealer, a buyer or a home. A few rules apply. The vehicle must be released to the carrier: the processing center or customs broker needs the driver's name and the carrier's authority on file, and pickups are usually by appointment during business hours. Many port vehicles don't have plates, which is fine for a carrier but not for driving. Some arrive with a low battery after weeks at sea; tell the coordinator so a driver with jump equipment or a winch is assigned. Inspect the car against the shipping line's condition report before the carrier takes it, so ocean damage is documented separately from the truck leg. The Long Beach coordinator handles port pickups weekly and can walk an importer or a first-time buyer through the paperwork.
Beyond the port, Long Beach's shipping looks like a large city's. Military families at the Seal Beach naval station and Los Alamitos ship privately owned vehicles to the next duty station — Norfolk, Jacksonville, Bremerton, San Diego — with a military rate and pickup windows built around report dates. Cal State Long Beach brings students from across the West in August and sends them home in May; the campus doesn't take a carrier at the door, so the driver meets students at a lot on Bellflower Boulevard or near the Traffic Circle. Downtown's high-rise residents relocate for jobs in the Bay Area, Seattle, Austin and New York and ship the car rather than drive. And Bixby Knolls and Naples have a deep classic and custom car culture — those vehicles go covered, often to shows and buyers across the country.
Most Long Beach vehicles — the commuter car from a downtown garage, the family SUV from Los Altos, a port import headed to a dealer, a student's hatchback — ride open on two-deck trailers, which is how new cars reach dealerships and the cheapest way to move almost anything. The exceptions come out of Bixby Knolls, Naples and the Peninsula: restored customs, air-cooled Porsches, new EVs whose owners want them under a roof. Those go covered, on trailers with a liftgate and soft straps and a handful of other cars. One thing about Long Beach specifically: a car that's lived near the water for years may have corrosion on the lower panels that its owner has stopped noticing. Photograph it closely before it goes on an open trailer, so what was there before the trip is on the record.
Trucks that unload at the port have to go somewhere, and a carrier would rather leave Long Beach with a resident's sedan bound for Phoenix than drive inland empty. That return-load dynamic sets a favorable base for every lane. On top of it, the usual factors apply: how far the car is going (Phoenix and Las Vegas shortest; Oakland and San Jose efficient via the 5; Seattle long with carriers wanting full loads; Houston long but heavily traveled; Norfolk and Jacksonville the longest, cheapest per mile), how much trailer space it takes, whether it needs a winch, whether it rides open or covered, and whether you've given the driver a window of a few days. In heavy import months, more empty trucks leave the port and prices soften further. The number on this page is all-in.
Military PCS season from late spring through summer overlaps the civilian moving peak. Late August and mid-May are Cal State's peaks. Port volume rises in late summer and before the holidays, which puts more carriers on the road. Classic-car shipments cluster around show seasons. The Grand Prix in April closes streets downtown and fills the lots near the Convention Center — plan pickups elsewhere that weekend. The two weeks after Christmas are quiet. Book two to three weeks ahead inside a peak if your dates are fixed.
Long Beach has one of the higher EV adoption rates in the county, and electric cars ship a little differently. They're heavy, so the carrier positions them on the lower deck. They should leave at a partial charge — roughly half — not full and not nearly empty. Put the car in transport or tow mode so it doesn't lock its wheels on the trailer, and turn off sentry or dashcam recording so the battery isn't drained over a four-day trip. Leave the charging cable in the trunk only if the driver knows it's there. At delivery, check the state of charge along with the condition sheet. The coordinator ships Teslas, Rivians, Hyundais and Kias every week and will go through the model-specific steps with you.
The day before: wash it, then photograph it — every side, the roof, the wheels, and the rocker panels and wheel wells if it's been garaged near the beach. Clear out the cabin and trunk, pull the toll tag and the garage remote, and fuel to a quarter tank (or charge an EV to about half). On the morning: meet the driver, walk the car together, read the condition sheet, keep your copy, hand over a spare key. Mirrors in, antenna down. A non-runner is fine as long as it rolls, steers and stops and you told us at the quote so the truck brought a winch.
From the moment it's strapped down to the moment it's signed for, the car is covered by the carrier's cargo policy, which we check is current before the truck is assigned. The condition sheet from the Long Beach handoff is the record it left in, the delivery sheet is the record it arrived in, and the gap between them is the carrier's to answer for. Port vehicles have an extra wrinkle: keep the shipping line's ocean-leg report separate from the carrier's truck-leg sheet so damage isn't attributed to the wrong leg. For a Bixby Knolls classic or a new Taycan, ask what the per-vehicle limit on the policy is before you book; covered carriers usually carry more. Your coordinator runs any claim with you.
Cars come into Long Beach as often as they leave: a service member's vehicle reporting to Seal Beach, a freshman's car arriving for Cal State, a hire for one of the logistics companies near the port, a resident back from a winter in Arizona, a buyer's find from an auction in Texas. The coordinator follows the truck from the pickup city, calls with a delivery window, and — if you're downtown or on the peninsula — arranges a handoff at the Pike or near the Traffic Circle so you drive the last mile.
Port release procedures, which neighborhoods take a hauler and which mean a meet-up, what the Grand Prix does to downtown in April, and the fact that outbound trucks are cheapest right after the port unloads — that's what a Long Beach office knows. Golden State Auto Transport pairs you with licensed, insured carriers checked for operating authority, safety history and current cargo coverage, and the coordinator stays with the car until it's signed for. Use the instant quote above or call the Long Beach office at the number at the top of the page.
New to shipping a car? Read how it works, what goes into the cost, and the pickup checklist.
Get a free, no-obligation quote in about 30 seconds — or call our Long Beach office and talk to a coordinator now.
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