Setting up a prestige car hire

[cqueen]

Is something which really floats my boat.

Do any of you guys know anything about it?is it profitable?

I wouldnt be able to raise the money for thing like lamborghinis or new ferraris, I was thinking more along the lines of porsche 911s, mercedes, tvr tuscans, that sort of thing, nice cars but not silly money.

I know there arnt any near norwich because Ive looked many times.

your thoughts please?

[clairemackaness]

Wouldn't you be better to get an old wedding car first, make some money on that and then go on to buy a posh car that grooms could borrow to get to the church?

[Jayne]

I thought you were skint? :lol:

Anyway, were you thinking of renting these cars out? Bet it costs a lot on insurance?

You may be better going for cars that could be used for weddings etc, that's where the money is!

Jayne :D

[Jayne]

lol.. Strange, posted the same time as Claire..

Both the same answer too :lol:

[clairemackaness]

Great minds think alike Jayne!

[cqueen]

I'm just trying to get an idea of what it involves really and more importably if it makes money.

Probably not worth it in the long run, I'm sure there are other businesses that make much more from much less.

[Greig]

I know of a new company in Norwich that has just set up exactly what you said, I can't find the name but we met them last week at a Networking event.

[Laura-Louise]

Hi,

I have a lot of contacts in the wedding car/executive car industry, not in your area though.

There are numerous ways that this business can make money:

1. Wedding cars for the Bride, Father of the Bride & Bridesmaids etc.
2. Wedding car for the Groom and his Bestman
3. Vehicles to take the Bride & Groom to the Airport (arriving in style)
4.Vehicles for going on Stag Do's and Hen Party's
5. Race Course events - Eg. Ladies day. Women wearing heels on Grass therefore walking long distances to/from hotels/races, is not a good mix.
6.University Graduation Balls - Vehicles from their home to the Hotel/venue.
7.Hiring of cars for one off events - exhibitions etc.
8. There is a car company here that offers chauffeur driven sports car from a helicopter pad/ small airport to where ever.

The market is huge, but you need to do the "no distance too far" and "no job too small" approach. Remember they are hiring you for status, so your look is important.

Hope this helps.

Laura-Louise

[crus]

From my kowledge,

you can do this two ways, buy a luxury car 100K+ then supplement the high running costs by offering exclusive hire for weddings etc.

Or you need to get a large number of cars and target insurance hire for damaged luxury then supplement with day to day hire.

http://www.tangentperformance.com for example of how the guy off The Apprentice is doing it.

Hope that makes sense.

D

[telemax]

Hi

There are some nice old mercs or rolls royce that pop up on ebay for next to nothing, also I there is a guy I know of who sells complete limo businesses ie the actual limo, website, ltd company name etc.

That might be a lower cost way of getting onto that business

Jonathan

[amcphillips]

Hi cqueen this is something that I've been looking at doing too. I'm based in Leeds so not sure of there's an opportunity to try and collaborate on this and split the risk as like you I don't have 100k+ in my backpocket.

Another revenue stream is to use the cars for "driving experiences". After being on a couple of these they get a lot of cash for very little.

The best way to approach this is to take a 911 for example on lease or HP as a business asset and spread the cost over x years IMO. You then charge a rate which takes into account insurance, fuel, servicing, other repairs, finance and then finally a bit of profit! If the cars were solely for track use then technically you wouldn't needs vehicle insurance but you would have the risk of some numpty totalling your car! Happy to discus with you more as I've done quite a bit of research into this.

[cqueen]

I know what you mean about these ''driving experiences''. Only yesturday I was speaking to a friend who had done a rally day, there was me thinking she'd had a go in a full rally critren/mitsubishi or something, but no it was an old mark 2 & mark 3 road going golf?!
It would be good to get an old f1 car, those track days are £'000s.

[amcphillips]

Aintree racing drivers school do an F1 experience which they seem to have taken the price off their website. I have a feeling that it was somewhere between £1,000 and £1,500 but it did include a full day in other cars to make sure you were ready for the F1 car. A rolling F1 chassis (ie without engine) will set you back about £20,000. I have seen them for sale complete for around £30,000 but if you went something special such as an ex Damon Hill etc than its well over £100,000

[cqueen]

Its £1250, I've seen some F1 track days up to £3000

http://www.racing-school.co.uk/pricelist.html

[multilingual]

You might find that the liability insurance is astronomical to make such a venture viable.

I know of one person who set up a prestige car hire company but had to pack it up and concentrate on wedding days instead simply because of the insurance prices. Once you put a novice driver behind the wheel of a high powered car the risks sky rocket.

Damon Hill's P1 company is the best way to run a luxury car hire business. It is a club where members join and pay X amount per year and can tap into a pool of cars for a certain amount of days per year.

Someone can book the Ferrari for a weekend trip to Paris and then take it back and book the DB9 for the summer drive down to Italy, etc. All members are given a driving course as part of their membership (or they used to be) which makes the insurance people a little less nervous.

Seems to work for Mr Hill but it took quite a while for it to get going properly. ie you need the cars to get the members but without the members you can't get the cars.

JB

[amcphillips]

I looked at the P1 company and the classic car club operate a similar policy. I have considered a venture along similar lines but works out much fairer in terms of the time you get in a car and being guaranteed availablilty (I won't say anymore about it for now!). As you say, you need the cars to get the customers but need the customers before you can afford the cars! One way around this would be to get them to sign some sort of intention to purchase document then once you reach a certain trigger point ask for their payments and buy the vehicles. Don't know how many people would go for this though!