Car Club - Would this work?
Discussion
I've often wondered about the wisdom in having a 2nd/3rd car sat in a garage most of the time that only comes out on weekends.
I am sure we have all seen these schemes whereby people buy into a car club and then get allocated points which they then redeem against various cars.
What about a very small car club whereby everyone contributes the same amount, all members know each other (or are personally recommended), they get allocated x number of weekdays and y number of weekends, each driver pays a cost per mile for the car.
For insurance purposes, probably a group policy under a Ltd Co. would be needed (allowing all company people to drive all vehicles) - All participants would become an equal share director.
Car(s) would need to be garaged and someone would need to be key holder (someone retired perhaps)
I'm thinking that if there were 5 or 6 people like me, we could be sharing something REALLY exotic. But we would all end up sharing the costs and, perhaps most importantly, sharing the risks if something like a Ferrari engine were to go pop.
Obviously, checks would be needed on all participants to ensure they were not criminals, decent drivers, etc..
The idea being a means to an end (drive really nice cars) and not a money making exercise.
Could it work?
I am sure we have all seen these schemes whereby people buy into a car club and then get allocated points which they then redeem against various cars.
What about a very small car club whereby everyone contributes the same amount, all members know each other (or are personally recommended), they get allocated x number of weekdays and y number of weekends, each driver pays a cost per mile for the car.
For insurance purposes, probably a group policy under a Ltd Co. would be needed (allowing all company people to drive all vehicles) - All participants would become an equal share director.
Car(s) would need to be garaged and someone would need to be key holder (someone retired perhaps)
I'm thinking that if there were 5 or 6 people like me, we could be sharing something REALLY exotic. But we would all end up sharing the costs and, perhaps most importantly, sharing the risks if something like a Ferrari engine were to go pop.
Obviously, checks would be needed on all participants to ensure they were not criminals, decent drivers, etc..
The idea being a means to an end (drive really nice cars) and not a money making exercise.
Could it work?
J_S_G said:
Think you need to clarify:
Are you talking about X people buying 1 car, or X buying buying Y (where Y is some number up to and including X) cars?
If Y is a low number (or 1), then I think you'll find everyone wants the car(s) at the same time - on summer weekends!
With 1 car the costs are much lower. With 6 participants that would mean that they would get 8 full weekends per year (2 per quarter) and 40 weekdays.
volvos70t5 said:
Think you need to clarify:
Are you talking about X people buying 1 car, or X buying buying Y (where Y is some number up to and including X) cars?
If Y is a low number (or 1), then I think you'll find everyone wants the car(s) at the same time - on summer weekends!
With 1 car the costs are much lower. With 6 participants that would mean that they would get 8 full weekends per year (2 per quarter) and 40 weekdays.
To be honest - that model wouldn't work for me personally at all (others may differ in opinion, of course).
So, I like to do a lot of "social driving". Which quite often happens to be with everyone else in the area off PH. So, on those weekends, only 1 of us would be able to take the car!
There's also the issue that you can pretty much write off October -> February to lousy weather and people not really caring about taking the car out. If you make an allowance for Christmas/New Year and Valentines Day when people might want something special, that's still 4 months of what really isn't "prime time". So, everyone will want to use their days in the remaining 8 months of the year.
Personally, I like driving nice cars to work; I don't get any real thrill out of it - it's just I'd rather drive a nice car than a crap car! The logistics of having to go somewhere to pick up a nice car to drive it for a couple of days then return it again would really hamper the slight positive of that (again, purely in my opinion).
And you'll still have fights over first-sunny-weekend-of-the-year, Easter, bank holidays, Le Mans weekend, etc. The problem is that a good day for driving for one person is quite often a good day for another person, too.
Given that you can pick up an S2 Elise for £15k, a Tuscan for £20k, and a (left hooker) Ferrari 355 or 456 for £35k, and get a car that suits you, rather than lowest-common-denominator choices that might have to otherwise be made (which would, naturally, end up including a 911 in the stable - a complete waste of money in my case, as I'd really not want to drive it), it just doesn't look to quite stack up to me.
You've also got the issue of buying and selling cars - who puts the effort in, etc. Then there's splitting of running costs - if you have multiple cars you're likely to end up having people moaning about footing portions of bills on cars they've never driven. Example: brand new engine for a Ferrari 456 = £68k I believe. The combined buying power would definitely allow for some really nice Italian exotica, but the running costs aren't a like-for-like increase (in my experience); they go up far faster than simply the cost of the car.
J_S_G said:
J_S_G said:
Think you need to clarify:
Are you talking about X people buying 1 car, or X buying buying Y (where Y is some number up to and including X) cars?
If Y is a low number (or 1), then I think you'll find everyone wants the car(s) at the same time - on summer weekends!
With 1 car the costs are much lower. With 6 participants that would mean that they would get 8 full weekends per year (2 per quarter) and 40 weekdays.
To be honest - that model wouldn't work for me personally at all (others may differ in opinion, of course).
So, I like to do a lot of "social driving". Which quite often happens to be with everyone else in the area off PH. So, on those weekends, only 1 of us would be able to take the car!
There's also the issue that you can pretty much write off October -> February to lousy weather and people not really caring about taking the car out. If you make an allowance for Christmas/New Year and Valentines Day when people might want something special, that's still 4 months of what really isn't "prime time". So, everyone will want to use their days in the remaining 8 months of the year.
Personally, I like driving nice cars to work; I don't get any real thrill out of it - it's just I'd rather drive a nice car than a crap car! The logistics of having to go somewhere to pick up a nice car to drive it for a couple of days then return it again would really hamper the slight positive of that (again, purely in my opinion).
And you'll still have fights over first-sunny-weekend-of-the-year, Easter, bank holidays, Le Mans weekend, etc. The problem is that a good day for driving for one person is quite often a good day for another person, too.
Given that you can pick up an S2 Elise for £15k, a Tuscan for £20k, and a (left hooker) Ferrari 355 or 456 for £35k, and get a car that suits you, rather than lowest-common-denominator choices that might have to otherwise be made (which would, naturally, end up including a 911 in the stable - a complete waste of money in my case, as I'd really not want to drive it), it just doesn't look to quite stack up to me.
You've also got the issue of buying and selling cars - who puts the effort in, etc. Then there's splitting of running costs - if you have multiple cars you're likely to end up having people moaning about footing portions of bills on cars they've never driven. Example: brand new engine for a Ferrari 456 = £68k I believe. The combined buying power would definitely allow for some really nice Italian exotica, but the running costs aren't a like-for-like increase (in my experience); they go up far faster than simply the cost of the car.
JS
Some good points.. I'll address them as best I can. Most of my road driving is done on my own or with a fellow enthusiast. I did participate in my first convoy event on sunday which was fun.
I think it is pretty much dependent on what people want from such a scheme. Personally, I like bank holiday weekends with the family so I wouldn't be particularly interested in those weekends.
I think most enthusiasts drive (or aspire to drive) something fairly decent for everyday use but there is always the lure of cars like Noble/Ferrari/Aston etc for high days and holidays.
Perhaps a charge per mile for the car would be the fairer way of ensuring that the servicing / consumable / repair costs are covered.
Craig, don't forget everyone wants different things, that is the beauty of life. I work almost every w/e and drive my car almost exclusively during the week so your cunning plan could work with people like me in it. If you only have a group of people doing exactly the same thing ie, work same hours, kids do same things etc the members of your club may get a little frustrated.
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