Car transport
Car transport to Nice
Your car to Nice or the Côte d'Azur, 1,350 kilometres, one long driving day, one dedicated driver. Collected today, it can be by the sea tomorrow.
Netherlands → Nice
The only route that fits into a single day
Nice is 1,350 kilometres away, close, by my standards. That makes this route fundamentally different from Spain or Portugal: not two days with a hotel night, but one long driving day. Collection in the morning usually means delivery on the Côte d'Azur that same evening or the next morning.
The audience is different too. Where Spain is about wintering, the Côte d'Azur is about the season and about moments: a summer in Antibes or Cap Ferrat, the Grand Prix in Monaco, the festival in Cannes, a yacht show, a house in Saint-Tropez used from May to September.
In every one of those cases the car has to be there on a fixed date, and it has to arrive as it left. That is exactly what one dedicated driver and a condition report at departure and arrival are for.
Your route
Netherlands → Nice
One direct drive from the Netherlands, your own car, one dedicated driver, from your door to the destination. Every other destination in Europe I drive just as readily.
direct route · 1 dedicated driver
Price indication — Nice
One-way
~ 1350 km · ~ 1 driving days
- Driver fee
- € 650
- Travel expenses (calculated up front, no mark-up)
- € 790
- Total (indicative)
- ± € 1.750
incl. 21% VAT · ± € 1.440 excl. VAT
Return (combi)
~ 1350 km · ~ 2 driving days
- Driver fee
- € 1.200
- Travel expenses (calculated up front, no mark-up)
- € 1.400
- Total (indicative)
- ± € 3.150
incl. 21% VAT · ± € 2.600 excl. VAT
Prices may vary slightly due to variable costs such as hotel, fuel and tolls.
Who drives this route
Why cars go to the Côte d'Azur
On this route timing almost always weighs more heavily than price.
The summer house on the coast
Antibes, Cap d'Antibes, Cap Ferrat, Villefranche, Cannes, Saint-Tropez. The car goes down in May or June and comes back in September, four months with your own car instead of four months of rental.
Events with a fixed date
The Monaco Grand Prix, the Cannes film festival, the yacht shows in Antibes and Monaco. Here the arrival date isn't negotiable and the car has to pull up presentable, not dusty off an open transporter.
Business and short notice
Because it's a single driving day, this route can be scheduled faster than any other. Call on a Thursday and the car can often be on the coast for the weekend.
The route
Netherlands → Nice in one driving day
Straight south: Liège or Luxembourg, Metz, Beaune, Lyon, the Rhône valley and then the A8 along the coast. ± 1,350 km, a good thirteen hours of driving including the legally required breaks.
- 01
Collection at your home
Your address · 30–45 min
360° condition report with photos, odometer and fuel recorded, transport agreement signed. For a car heading to an event I pay extra attention to paint and wheels. That is exactly what you'll judge it on later.
- 02
Netherlands → Metz
Morning · ± 400 km
Via Liège and Luxembourg across the French border. Quiet motorways, and in Luxembourg the cheapest fuel of the whole trip, noticeable in the travel expenses.
- 03
Metz → Lyon
Afternoon · ± 450 km
Past Nancy and Beaune through Burgundy to Lyon. This is where the tolls add up and where summer Saturdays jam solid; I plan around it.
- 04
Lyon → Nice
Evening · ± 300 km
Down the Rhône valley to Aix-en-Provence and then onto the A8 — La Provençale — past Fréjus and Cannes into Nice. The last stretch is winding and busy; I take it deliberately gently.
- 05
Delivery on the coast
Your address · Nice, Monaco or Cannes
Second 360° report, key handed over personally. Return flight from Nice, the best-connected airport of any destination I drive.
What matters on this route
Recurring events
On the Côte d'Azur the calendar is not a footnote but part of the demand. The Cannes Film Festival ran from 12 to 23 May in 2026, and the Monaco Grand Prix fell exceptionally on 4 to 7 June this year rather than in May. In those weeks cars are sent down precisely because the owner does not want to drive there and there is nothing left to hire locally. There is also the Nice Carnaval in early spring, when the Promenade des Anglais and the centre are closed for days. For those dates I book well ahead: hotels on the route and in the region are full months in advance.
One driving day means no hotel night
Every Spanish and Portuguese route puts at least one overnight stay on the invoice. This one doesn't. That shows up directly in the travel expenses, which I calculate up front and include in the fixed price.
Summer Saturdays are the problem, not the distance
The Lyon–Provence corridor is one of Europe's busiest on July and August Saturdays. I depart mid-week or early morning then; it saves hours and makes an arrival time predictable rather than hopeful.
Winter is no obstacle here
The route runs down the Rhône valley and along the coast, not over Alpine passes. Even in December and January this is an ordinary motorway run, unlike destinations such as Geneva or Zürich, where winter tyres and passes genuinely come into play.
Nice has the most return flights
Nice Côte d'Azur has the densest schedule to Amsterdam of any destination on this site. That makes my return flight both cheap and flexible, which makes a one-way trip here especially efficient.
Parking is the last hurdle
In the old centre of Nice, in Monaco and in Cannes, street parking is practically impossible. Tell me where the car should end up — a garage, a hotel, a résidence — and it gets planned in advance rather than solved on the spot.
Compare your options
The same car from the Netherlands to Southern Europe, three ways, three price tags. With a trailer, watch which one you are comparing: riding along on a scheduled line from depot to depot is the cheapest there is, but a transporter making the run for your car alone charges per kilometre and bills the truck’s journey home as well. Between those two extremes sits a factor of five.
Trailer transport
€675 – 4,500 excl.
± 10 working days, or 2–3
- €675 – 850 if your car rides along on a scheduled line
- But then you take it to the depot yourself and collect it yourself on arrival, ten working days later
- If the transporter runs for your car alone, door to door, it goes per kilometre — open ± €0.95, enclosed ± €1.35 — and the truck’s journey home counts too. Utrecht–Marbella comes to ± €4,500
- Luggage in the car usually not allowed
Driving it yourself
± €0.25 per km + your time
± 2 – 3 days of your own
- You drive the whole route yourself
- Fuel and tolls come to roughly €0.25 per kilometre
- Plus a hotel night on the way and a flight back
- And two to three days of your own time
Monarch DriveDrive-it-Back
± €2,040 excl. for Utrecht–Marbella
± 3 days
- One dedicated driver drives your own car, door to door
- Half what a transporter charges to make that same run for your car alone
- On the day you choose, not the day the line departs
- Load the car with your own luggage
- 360° condition report + daily updates
Trailer prices, September 2026: the line prices from one large Dutch car transporter's own route pages, the door-to-door price from a Dutch specialist in exclusive car transport's own rate calculator. My figure is the indication from the calculator above for Utrecht–Marbella, one way. All amounts exclude VAT so they can be read side by side. Travel expenses are calculated up front and included in the fixed price, with no mark-up.
Frequently asked
About the route to Nice
Yes. 1,350 kilometres is one long driving day, a good thirteen hours including the required breaks. Collect early in the morning and the car is on the Côte d'Azur that evening. With a later collection it becomes the next morning. We agree an arrival moment beforehand, not a two-day window.
Yes, all within the same trip. Monaco is twenty minutes past Nice, Cannes and Antibes before it, Saint-Tropez about an hour further west. For Monaco one thing matters: tell me where the car should be left, because a parking space there doesn't present itself.
Yes, and on this route it's the most requested arrangement: down in May or June, back in September. Booked as one assignment the price per kilometre is clearly lower than two separate one-way trips, and the return is already in the schedule before the season ends.
It arrives the way a car arrives after 1,350 motorway kilometres, which isn't showroom clean. If the car is going to an event or needs to be used straight away, say so: I'll arrange a wash shortly before delivery and bill it as a separate item.
More readily than the Spanish routes. Because it involves only one driving day and one return flight, this trip can usually be scheduled with a few days' notice. Call or message with a date and you'll hear straight away whether it's feasible.
It's a long day, which is exactly why it's planned as one: early departure, fixed breaks, and no arrival at midnight. If traffic or delays stretch the day, I stop en route and deliver the next morning. Your car is never served by a driver pressing on because the schedule said so.
How I safeguard your car
Clear about cover
Your own policy stays leading. Damage caused by me: I cover the excess up to €500. What I do not have is stated just as plainly.
Signed transport agreement
Every arrangement — excess, route, planning — recorded in writing beforehand.
360° condition report
Your car's condition fully documented with photos, before and on delivery.
Reply within 24 hours
A personal answer from one point of contact, not a call centre.
Further reading
Everything connected to this route, in one place.
The other direction
And if your car needs to come back from Nice?
Bringing your car back from Nice costs ± € 1.530. Going out is ± € 1.750, so the return works out cheaper: the last driving day ends at my own door, with no hotel night at the far end and no flight home. I fly out and drive it back to you.
Ready to have your car transported safely?
Request your indication with no obligation. Within 24 hours you will have a personal reply.