Car Hire Market Research (sorry)

[biggerbigneil 0]

Hi Guys / Girls

 

I haven't been on this forum for a while but it's still the only forum I know that is full of nice, normal people. PH does my head in but it's fun winding up the GTR followers with Porsche comments :-).

 

Anyway, I'm thinking about setting up a 'modern classics' sports car hire company. There are lots of places to go for Ferrari's etc for £1k per day but not many places to hire say an E30 M3, M3 convertible, Corrado Storm, E Type, Karman Ghia etc.

 

Please could you let me know if: -

 

A) would you consider hiring a modern classic car?

 

B) How much would you pay to rent an E46 M3 for a weekend? (£400 reasonable?)

 

C) Do you think deposit requirements of £5k are reasonable, if not, what amount or security do you think is acceptable?

 

D) Honestly, would you rag the pants off it?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

CF discount coming your way if I ever get it off the ground :-)

[tyler 0]

hi

 

would i considering hire a modern classic? yes i would but have to be something specail.

 

How much would you pay to rent an E46 M3 for a weekend? tops 100 uk pounds this is because you can hire a m3 from most hire companines which is less than 3yrs old sorry

 

Do you think deposit requirements of £5k are reasonable, if not, what amount or security do you think is acceptable? very steep this is because if you have a spare 5k in the bank why not buy a early m5

 

Honestly, would you rag the pants off it? i would completely rape it then i would rape it some more then let my mates rape (dont want sloppy seconds)

 

 

 

to be honest its not the best ideal mid range modern classic/ toys you wanted when you was younger ect i think people would rather rent db9 than a storm and the market your be aiming at would be 50+ because the prices you want

[Wendy 0]

Yes, I would hire these cars.

 

Do consider including Z4's and 350Z's though !!!

 

Not sure what I would be prepared to pay, I would though, really do my homework, to see what car could be hired for what price, considering with this, insurances and deposits. Expecting from that, a lower price and higher deposit or vice versa.

 

I feel, a 5k deposit is way too high, again I would want to investigate this to check what is going on in the market place. But, it would stop me investigating/hiring from that company if I had to pay a 5k deposit. No way would I be interested.

What about a Insurance Policy to cover the risks and a smaller deposit to cover more minimal occurances.

Say 2k, rising in value as per car valuation. I would have thought this should be enough to prevent the pure stupidty aspect of driving a sports classic and careless, disrespectful attidues too. Everyman Racing Track Experiences have a 2 k deposit and these are mainly Supersports cars - admittedily you only have approx 1 hour driving time though.

 

No I would not rag the pants off it, but yes, I would drive it hard and probably most of the time I hired it.

I personally would not have hired it otherwise.

I would also though, as I would in anyones car, including my own vehicle drive them with respect, oil at temperature before opening them up etc etc, however I do not think you could guarantee this from most.

 

Sad to say and I am really sorry guys - my lower limit to hire such vehicles would be rather higher than the standard 21 years old, at least 25.

 

I know these were questions on Market Research only, I have masses of thoughts going on about the legal side, finances, etc etc. Please ensure you get all this thoroughly researched. Apologies now for being bossy !!! Sorry !

 

Good Luck

[BigTartanJudge 0]

I feel I can offer some useful comments here, after all I worked for the biggest car rental company in the UK for over 4 years, who has a sports, prestige and executive arm.

 

In short, I would pay be prepared to pay about £350 a weekend for an e46 M3 (thats 3-day weekend, midday Fri to midday Mon). It's not up-to-date now, but I didn't know of any other large companies that offered this as a hire car when it was newer, and there is no way, even today that you would be able to rent one of these for £100 for a weekend, not even a hope Tyler :lol:

 

The going rate for a sports - exec car for a 3-day weekend ranges from £350-£650 depending on model, from the company I used to work for and thats for a less than year old car normally. Deposits are around £1k which I think is pretty fair. The arrangement normally is you leave a full deposit of whatever amount and this is the minimum cover. If you have an accident this deposit is kept and the balance is kept as a suriety, if damage is less than whatever deposit amount was, the customer gets balance back. If more than whatever cost of deposit was to fix, the customer forfeits the deposit and the owner of the car / hire company claims back the rest of the cost from their insurer. The customer is also normally able to reduce the size ofthe deposit down slightly by paying an extra premium. Also, it is normal standard practice to ask for a £75 fuel deposit. Both the customer and the hirer of the vehicle must go over the vehicle together and come to an agreement on pre-existing damage / condition of vehicle prior to hire commencing, so there can be no arguments when the vehicle is returned (I have seen this happen TIME AFTER TIME AFTER TIME)

 

Minimum age for the cheapest car (a Mini Cooper S) was 25+ and the same age for Merc C220, E280, Jag X-Type, Audi A4, SAAB 9-3 Conv, Audi A3 conv. 30+ is the minimum age for TT-S, Audi A5, Range Rover, Audi Q7, SLK/CLK 350, XF, XJ, S-Class, ML, Porsche Boxster.

 

Would I rag the ar5e off the car I was renting ? Well the cars were built to be driven and I would drive them hard, and the fact it is someone else's car would mean that I probably wouldn't be as gentle as I might be if the car was my own, however, I wouldn't be inclined to totally abuse it or drive carelessly or dangerously.

 

Hope this is useful mate.

[Jim 2]

Great idea for a business mate, and I'd be all over it - would be fantastic to be able to hire older performance cars like these where modern performance cars are still out of my reach.

 

a) Absolutely, most definately. Older M3's, M5's, E55 AMG's, old RS4's etc - anything like that, I'd be really interested in.

 

b) I think you're in the right kind of ball park. It'd have to come in under the costs of lower end NEW performance cars.. £400 for an M3 for a weekend sounds right around the kind of money I'd spend.

 

c) The deposit is always a problem unless you have a credit card. Even then it's tricky. I've got a few credit cards and all of them are limited to £4000... I guess I'd just ask them to raise the limit before I wanted to hire one of these cars but you have to bear in mind that a £5000 deposit is what you'd be expected to pay if you hired out a new Porsche Boxster or something, so asking to pay that on a car worth 1/3 (or less!) of a new Boxster might be tough.

 

d) I personally would not. I never would rag someone elses car, even if it was a hire car. Just a bit of straight line speed testing and that'd be enough for me. I suspect plenty of people would though. Mandatory minimum age of 25 would help eliminate the immaturity / lack of experience aspect. Maybe not allowing people with more than 6 points on their license or something too would help whilst you get your business off the ground?

[biggerbigneil 0]

Thanks All! very useful posts.

 

I think the kind of person that would hire say an E46 M3 Convertible or 993 Cab would drive more sensibly than say a 968 club sport or E30 M3 so that is one starting point. Not many people want a convertible in the winter though so this limits months of hire.

 

From companies such as P1, supercarhire etc they charge £1k for an E90 M3 for a weekend and want £10k deposit so I think £350 - £400 for an E46 with maybe £3k deposit could be reasonable. The majority of car values would be £15k - £20k. Z4's and RS4's would be good choices - want to stick with the FastGerman thing :-). Maybe E39 M5 and CLK 55 (original F1 pace car).

 

It's down to insurance costs now really as I won't have more than 3 cars to start with so need to look into the profit margin.

 

If I had say an E46 M3 SMG and it came back with an SMG fault and an engine fault, worst case a new engine £10k from BMW and new SMG clutch and hydraulics at £5k could then kill the business at day 1.

 

More research needed :-).

[big ben 10]

people would rent these to thrash the crap out of them!! driving the classics like the germans meant them to be driven and all that.. You wouldnt rent one to look after it and go posing in a motor thats not yours??? posing in a brand new ferrari maybe, but these cars are just good fun to drive so i would drive them hard and fast, tyres smoking all weekend!!

 

would be a brilliant present for someone though and a very good idea, but dont think people wont be abusing your cars which you would no doubt grow attached to, 99% will "rape" them as said earlier

 

defiantely people over 25 years old (and im 24 saying that), no points (just at the beginning) and been driving over 5 years or something like that.... thats my thoughts anyway

[Kevin Bacon 5]

From companies such as P1, supercarhire etc they charge £1k for an E90 M3 for a weekend and want £10k deposit so I think £350 - £400 for an E46 with maybe £3k deposit could be reasonable.

 

Which is utterly ridiculous. A 3 series BMW with a big engine is not special enough to justify that kind of rental fee imo and in that context, your proposal of £400 for an E46 seems an absolute steal by comparison!

 

It's a good oppurtunity to experience an M3 as it should be, before BMW go turbo on the next M3 (something BMW vowed never to do, so a big slice of humble pie for them! :D ). The E92 is too big and bulky and the engine needs too much road space to fully exploit, so is a waste in this country (imo). The nimbler E30 and E46 are the 'proper' M3s imo and more usable on the kinds of roads you'd take a weekend break away on.

 

It's down to insurance costs now really as I won't have more than 3 cars to start with so need to look into the profit margin.

 

If I had say an E46 M3 SMG and it came back with an SMG fault and an engine fault, worst case a new engine £10k from BMW and new SMG clutch and hydraulics at £5k could then kill the business at day 1.

 

Yep, which is why you'd have to offer a manual only :D It's a no win situation though. Offer the SMG and have the potential repair bills, or don't offer it and the clients wanting SMG go elsewhere. They're no fools, they know it's too brutal on full attack mode and breaks easily, but it's not their car, so they won't care! :D

 

Personally, I'd want to hire something a bit more special than the norm. A big yank V8 that's got the looks and the noise. A corvette ZR1, always wanted a go in one. New Mustang, couple of old classic rag top mustangs, that kind of thing.

Shelby Cobra, Eleanor from Gone in 60 seconds, those kinds of cars :D

 

I also think "bite size" trials might work. Some people just want to know what it feels like to drive X Y or Z and can't afford it, or don't want it for 3 days.

Maybe if people pay a nominal fee of I dunno, £100 depending on car, plus petrol, they can go out accompanied by an open minded escort and have fun for an hour or 2.

[The_Dude 0]

a) yes i would

 

b) seems reasonable

 

c) seems excessive for a bimmer

 

d) yeah, i would absolutely rag the t*ts off it. i'd be way more inclined to do burnouts, donuts, take it into the red revs and the like, in a bimmer or merc than in a ferrari or aston martin. not to sy i'd be dangerous or anything but i'd certainly give it the beans where ever possible. wasn't it Bill Bailey that said "nothing handles like a hire car!"

 

 

problem is, the sort of cars you are thinking about, while still expensive are not top end sports / prestige cars and therefore people would be less likely to treat them right as "its only an m3, not a 360"...lowering your excess will also make it more accessible to scrotes with a credit card, but as others have said, who has 5k to spare on a deposit for (no offense) not very special car.