petestorey

Hi all,
currently in the process of (trying to) set up a car club along much the same lines as say the P1 club (www.p1international.com) but with slightly more "mortal" cars and a rather lower price tag.
We're currently trying to select just 3 cars to have for a first phase launch of the club, essentially to prove the concept and to get it kicked off (the bank manager always likes to see a working business before giving us 250k to buy more cars!).

I know that perhaps as Scooby owners this is not relevant to you, and it's only really a London thing anyway, but imagine you didnt have one and were thinking of joining this club, what would you like those 3 cars to be?

The main problem is insurance/age of potential members - probably we'd want to have an average age of 30 or so I guess otherwise the insurance is going to be pretty fruity and obviously that would push the costs up for the members. On the other hand we want people who want to take the cars out and use (though preferably not abuse!) them. One issue seems to be crashability - some are easier to lose than others and if you kill a car the insurance boost will kill the whole concept I think.

Basically were currently thinking something along the lines of :

- Audi TT Convertible 225
- Subaru Impreza WRX STi
- Lotus Elise S2

I know you may not like the TT but it's there as a posey cruiser - not everyone is a speed freak and there's no point in having all the cars exactly the same.
The next couple of cars after the first 3 I think would be

- M3 SMG Coupe
- Mini Cooper S

Though potentially we could swap the M3 in to the first stage and make it a convertible. Obviously this would make it rather more expensive, although to be honest the insurance is probably not dis-similar, and that is the major cost.

Has anyone got any thoughts on the line up? Would you prefer more cars of a lower "quality" - although to be honest since insurance parking etc is a big cost we're probably better off with better ones - or fewer better ones?
We would imagine getting ~30-40 days a year in the cars - I note on the p1 club's site they reckon you get 60 days a year for your 12.5k but somehow this seems a tad unlikely if you do the numbers on it!
Any ideas on what you'd be willing to pay? I guess our target is somewhere around £4k pa though that rather depends on the rest of the numbers.

cheers
Pete

petestorey

Yup know my partner was a member of it but many of their cars are rather more "classic" than perhaps I would like - ie in the large part knackered. Thats why we're thinking of setting up a new one. This is a different sector because we're talking only new, decent performance cars, and although it would be more expensive, the ccc is still expensive enough that you need to think more than twice about parting with the cash for it!
Pete

Dracoro

The classic car one works well as the cars don't really depreciate like the new ones you are suggesting will. Yes they will cost less to run but the depreciation will be far more.

People dream of driving cars they can't really afford so I'm not sure the demand for TT's or Scoobs will be anything like the market for an E type jag for example or a Ferrari/Aston etc. A good thing to find out is if the classic car company shown above actually makes a good profit.


But as long as there is the market for your idea and the maths adds up then go for it.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

I agree that people want to drive cars that they can't afford - but they might also pay to drive cars that they wouldn't want to actually own for other reasons. The Lotus falls into that category - fun to drive on the odd weekend, but not everyone's idea of an all-year-round way to use up garage space.

A TVR might fit the bill, or even a Caterham or Westfield (which also have the advantage of being cheap to buy, insure and run). Anything that's really impractical could be a good bet, and so could anything that's receiving a lot of press coverage (which is why I'm inclined to agree that the Mini is a good idea too).

Andy.

petestorey

Yup, Ive got a lotus myself but i'd love to have a whole load of other cars such as a scooby and so on for various different things im doing. Obviously I cant afford to keep 10 cars of my own and frankly it would be pointless to do so - basically if something like this existed then I would certainly join it - but sadly it doesnt so Im forced to think of how (if at all possible) to get it going so i can join it!
I think that it is different to say the classic car club where you certainly could "afford" most of the cars they have (for example their scooby is an x reg impreza turbo (not even a wrx) - so one's dreams might be shattered rather quickly when you discover quite the level of cars that actually exist. I give you, there are some obvious economies to the classic car stuff although on the downside they result in a lot of maintenance and "downtime" when they are knackered, which adds a lot of overhead to both managing and looking after the cars.
TVR is a bit of a no go sadly because they're just too easy to crash and the slightest dink smashes the fibreglass which is v expensive to repair
Pete