I just thought of something important I failed mention yesterday.

In response to Jon's query of "Is more tongue weight better?" I responded 'generally so.' However, that's not totally accurate. What I failed to mention (I was assuming this as common knowledge) is that as you increase the tongue weight, you obviously increase the load on the rear of the truck, however you're also DECREASING the percentage of load on the front wheels due to leverage around the rear axle. In other words, you're lifting up the nose. At extreme levels, this could could lack of steering and braking on the front wheels; not a good thing.

So what happens, then, as you start to tow larger and larger trailer loads you get to a point where you're incapable of keeping sufficient load on the nose of the truck. At that point you need to shift that tongue load forward; the only way to do that is to go to a fifth-wheel trailer.

A "fiver" is one that has the hitch placed in the bed of a pickup truck (or a cutaway van) immediately over the rear axle; it's also known as a "gooseneck" trailer. The point of a fiver is to place that load forward to eliminate the nose lift and improve rear axle traction, plus better distribute the load on the truck. You'll also notice that semis use a very similar system, with their load actually placed FORWARD of the rear axles; both front and rear axles work together to support the tongue weight.

Finally, regardless of which way you go, don't forget to size your hitch properly. Bumper-attached hitches are rarely sufficient for any kind of serious car hauling; you'll want a frame-mounted Class III or IV receiver.

So, it's a big game of compromise, between gross trailer weight, balance, tongue weight, hitch type, and truck sizing. Bigger is always better, but it's also almost always more expensive, too...

Ah, if money were no object...