A method for making a carcass for a pneumatic vehicle tire includes building up a carcass free from sidewalls with an inner liner, a single-ply or multi-ply carcass inlay and bead cores, at a carcass station on a carcass building drum, while creating ply turnups. The carcass produced without sidewalls is transferred to a transfer device. The carcass is kept on the transfer device while applying sidewalls to the carcass. The carcass is retained on the transfer device while transferring the carcass provided with the sidewalls to a shaping machine where the carcass is shaped into a toroidal shape.