Feature: The Spice of Life
August 1, 2007
That could explain why clubs that once featured a range of older American
cars—all the rage if you spend a few minutes watching car auctions on cable
TV—are starting to unload them in favor of vehicles that, chances are, your
neighbor has never set tush in.
From a 1959 BMW Isetta (top) to a 2007 Porsche Turbo, DFW Elite Car Club offers all cars to members based on a point system. Price of points is determined by level of membership. (Click images to enlarge); function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
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"We recently divested of a lot of our older muscle cars, mostly
because they had rough rides and people weren’t as interested in them as they
are the new Ferraris and Porsches," says George Kiebala, who in 2000 founded
Exotic Car Share in Palatine, Ill. He’s since added Curvy Road to his business
mix; where Exotic essentially runs as a high-end rental agency (after $250 to
join, $1,440 gets you a new Ferrari for a three-day weekend), Curvy Road allows
members to buy a $15,000 annual share of one particular exotic, and trade that
out for access to other pricey beasts.
When a friend told Ron Sturgeon how much he could charge
someone to rent the Bentley he tooled around Dallas with, a lightbulb went off.
Early last year, he started DFW Elite Car Club, which operates on the same
monthly membership fee (from $750 to $3,000) and daily rental principle (spend
$2,000 on the membership fee and the daily cost of taking out a Lamborghini
Gallardo is halved to $875). So far, the appeal of having someone else deal with
the headaches often associated with exotic car ownership has folks buzzing
around Sturgeon’s door.
"This concept is a compelling value proposition," he says. "Say
you buy a new exotic. You swear you’ll drive it every day, but, of course, you
won’t. And if you really total the number of miles driven per year and square
that with the cost of ownership, suddenly joining clubs like ours seems like a
good move."
Over in Glastonbury, Conn., Lane Brunner is counting on Mother
Nature to help spur interest in Px3 Country Club, the area’s newest car-share
club. "We get winters here, remember," he jokes. "So, you have a nice Maserati
and it’ll be sitting out of sight from October to April."
Px3 has corralled a handful of members to date, each of whom
pays around $15,000 for 50 days of access to a fleet that includes a range of
mid-level sports cars, such as the Porsche Cayman and Maserati Spyder. By not
opting for $200,000-plus gems from Ferrari and Lamborghini, Brunner says he’s
able to offer a lot of great driving for less money.
"I hang around with guys who between them own 40 Ferraris," he
says. "You just look at what they’re paying for oil changes alone and that can
cover a year membership."
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