04/27/2006 05:13:00 PM 
A recent article in BusinessWeek calls car sharing "A whole new segment:"
The idea is taking off, and why not? "The last, very big [sharing] market is cars," says Phil Kavanagh, co-founder of Britain's Classic Car Club, which has spawned Classic Car Club Manhattan and is planning to expand to 30 locations within five to seven years. Already, on the low end, outfits like Flexcar offer members the use of their fleets parked around cities like Seattle and Washington, D.C., for a $40 annual membership fee, plus hourly use rates. But Flexcar is offering Hondas, not Ferraris. And it's Ferraris that some sharers crave.
Car-share companies are popping up all over. The Indiana-based LuxShare Auto Club is the latest addition to the car-sharing company fleet. They represent the nationwide trend as they are only serving a local population of 200,000.
Members of these clubs can gain access to a fleet of luxury cars for less than the annual depreciation of the average luxury car for a fraction of the price. If you join, not only are you gaining access to drive these status symbols, you are joining a social club (with poker nights, member dinners, wine-cigar-tastings). You also have access to arranged chauffeurs for any business or social related event.
Other car-share companies include Exotic Car Share, The Classic Car Club Manhattan and Club Sportiva. These companies are bigger and growing fast. Classic Car Club Manhattan is opening locations all across the nation next year, including San Francisco, LA, and Miami. This car club was even highlighted on VH-1 as one of The Most Fabulous Things of 2006.
They all offer car time-shares for those aficionados that cannot afford to throw down a $100,000 investment, for business professionals who want to show off, or for people who just want to splurge without confronting a major financial mistake during their mid-life crisis. In the Business Week article mentioned earlier Jack Plunkett, founder of a market consultancy company says these car clubs are for "affluent baby boomers who can live their fantasies through such clubs."
You pay on a point system. It's about $9,000 for a premium membership which gives you enough points to drive a Porches for 35days. This is not cheap, but it is not as expensive as spending $300,000 on one car, that will probably sit in your garage depreciating in value. With these clubs you don?t have to wipe the dust off every time you drive it.
This idea of car sharing actually began in England about 6 years ago. They have about 7 clubs over there and have been successful thus far. It just makes sense. Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new Lamborghini if you only drive it 5 months out of the year, when you could spend the same amount to drive it those 5 months and then drive a hummer when it snows? These car-sharing companies are the solution to the hassles of owning cars such as Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, Ferrari Testarossa, Lotus Elise, Dodge Viper, Hummer H2, etc.
Time-sharing is nothing new. People have been sharing yachts, jets and houses for quite some time. Women are even sharing their purses in New York. It just makes you wonder what took so long for companies to start time-sharing cars.
Leave it to Influx to point out what a great branding opportunity this is for these luxury car brands who, in the past, have had such little exposure on the street. Although this is such a young idea and a small market, car brands should begin brainstorming on how they can take a more direct role.
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