Why does Exotic Car Share offer 3-Day
Weekends & Full Week Packages?
Why doesn’t Exotic Car Share offer
2-day or even 1-day or hourly exotic car usage?
Why is Exotic Car Share different than
car rental?
Why doesn’t Exotic Car Share offer
car rental?
Our product is membership usage of expensive and difficult
to own exotic and classic vehicles…
Our mission is to provide our members with the only
source in the U.S. where they can fully experience their
favorite exotic car, without the costs & hassles
of ownership.
Our product differs from Car Rental in a number of ways…
Primarily, we put a lot of resource into ensuring that
only qualified and responsible drivers join the club
and use its vehicles. We also put a lot of time &
effort in our vehicle orientation for each member, to
ensure that the member gets the most from their experience.
In addition, we provide supplemental insurance,
a full tank of gas at our expense, no limit to the mileage
the member can put on the car, a loaner video on the
history of the car, a guideline booklet on tips to enjoy
the car to the fullest, a pre-paid tollway I-pass, a
pager number for assistance 24 hours/7 days per week,
referral points earned for joining other members, a
frequent-driver program, which earns the member free
usage time, rain days for bad weather, ability to reserve
a specific car for a specific week up to 3 months in
advance, a guaranteed show-condition, fully detailed,
mechanically sound exotic car…
Plus: Members receive access - - with
membership - - to a full collection of rare exotic cars,
and even indoor storage for their daily car while using
the exotic car of their choice.
Can you think of any other company that
offers the level of service that Exotic Car Share provides?
Our Vehicles are rare and costly to maintain.
ECS maintains them all in showroom like-new condition
Our membership approach, including full
member pre-screening and 1 to 2 hour orientations with
each car, ensure proper use and enjoyment of the club’s
vehicles by qualified drivers only….
We also include a free tank of gas, as
a courtesy, with each car signed out by a member.
2.) These steps that we take for each
sign-out are costly and . . . if we only billed for
a day each time, we wouldn't be around very long.
Then our members and customers would have nowhere to
go to be able to use Ferraris, pristine Muscle Cars,
Porsches and Corvettes without buying them.
3.) We put in a fair amount of time and
resources to pre-screen each member, to prepare all
the information for the particular vehicle, provide
the orientation session and the driving familiarity
session, detail, and otherwise prepare the vehicle for
the usage to ensure the best driving experience possible
- - - If all that were to prepare for just a one day
“rental”, it could not justify the time
& resource involved.
4.) Our mission as a business is to provide
our members with the experience of driving the classic
& exotic car (s) of their choice as if they fully
owned the car. This is enhanced by the orientation process
and the minimum driving package length of 3 days. Our
members tell us it takes at least a half a day to a
day just to get used to a vehicle - - it becomes really
enjoyable to drive the car after that.
Our week-long package allows the member
to get a feel for what it’s like to actually live
with the car - - without the cost of ownership. |
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Exotic Car Share is an organization dedicated
to cost-effectively providing our members with a fun, unique,
rewarding & safe experience and the enjoyment of a variety
of exotic, sports, vintage and specialty cars. (Read our full
Mission Statement)
Exotic Car Share™ is the oldest and largest
car share membership club in the U.S. A division of D&V’s
Autonook, Inc., Exotic Car Share™ opened its doors to
the public on August 20, 2000 – and by doing so launched
an entirely new business category in the United States. At
that time, no club offered the automobile enthusiast access
to a collection of classics or even modern day exotics. By
pioneering the car share club concept, Exotic Car Share™
started a business type that has since grown into an industry.
Exotic Car Share now exceeds 900 members nationwide. “Me-too”
membership clubs have surfaced in cities as varied as New
York and San Francisco, often however, with complicated point
schemes where the club holds the member’s money.
Exotic Car Share™ doesn’t rent vehicles
or sell vehicles – instead it offers a members-only
collection of exotic and classic automobiles to pre-qualified
members, exclusively for week or 3-day weekend usage.
Originally founded in 1995 by George and Kathy
Kiebala, exotic car share's parent company, D&V’s
Auto Nook gave car enthusiasts in the NW Chicago suburbs a
local, affordable, clean, secure, temperature and humidity
controlled alternative for specialty car storage.
As car enthusiasts themselves with a collection
of specialty vehicles & sports cars, George and Kathy
were looking for a solution to store the vehicles of their
hobby, and decided to start the kind of organization that
they would want to be a part of themselves.
D&V’s was sold-out every year, right
from the beginning, with customers storing exotic & specialty
cars ranging from a Jensen Interceptor III, to a Ferrari 348
Spider. One common situation seemed to be true for almost
all the vehicle owners storing their cars at D&V’s.
Many of these great cars were only actually being driven a
few weeks out of every year…..yet the owners had to
pay full insurance, maintenance, storage, and deal with all
the other hassles of owning a specialty car.
This seemed to be an even greater issue with
the more exotic vehicles, because these vehicles can be quite
expensive to purchase and maintain…. and all for a few
weeks a year of driving enjoyment. Not to mention that high
performance cars are happier when being driven regularly.
So, why not expand the organization into a membership
club that did more than store exotic cars for customers? Why
not also buy and maintain a variety of vehicles that members
of the organization could sign out, like books from a library?
Except a little more exciting.
An associate of George's and an owner of an
Audi A4 & BMW M3, Max, had experienced some Ferraris
in action on his honeymoon in Italy. Discussions of sharing
the purchase of a Ferrari with a couple of other enthusiasts,
to spread out the enormous cost, led to a merging of ideas
and the establishment of exotic car share.
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Continuing the successful launch of Curvy Road and
expansion of Exotic Car Share, this ad appeared in
the May 2006 issue of Robb Report. (Click
image for larger view)
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Exotic Car Share started the car share club
business for the first time in the U.S. in August of 2000, and
since then over a dozen clubs have emerged - - most with complicated
point schemes and upfront money required for points that often
are never used by the customers of those clubs. Exotic Car Share
is set up on a pay as you drive basis to ensure that members
get the full benefit of their money.
Comprised of over a dozen vehicles, the car
club’s collection includes a couple of Ferrari 355 Spiders, a Mercedes Benz 500 SL Convertible Hardtop, a Dodge Viper GTS,
a classic Mustang Mach 1, an Alfa Romeo Quadrifoglio Spider, a Fiat 124 Spider, and a
Corvette Z-51 convertible.
Members pay a 5-year membership fee and can
then sign out any of the club’s vehicles for three-day
weekends & weeks for a single usage fee. This usage fee
covers everything, including taxes, storage, extra insurance,
unlimited mileage on most vehicles, and maintenance.
Our new location in Palatine
is ideally located, just 1/3 mile West of Rt. 53, on Northwest
Highway. This location offers members a library of information
on each of the cars in the fleet, including historical videos
and books on each marquee. The exotic car share multi-building
campus is a comfortable setting with an art gallery feel,
reading chairs, a TV for video viewing, a pool table, juice
bar and a chance to interact with other car enthusiasts.
The
company's innovative history continues with the launching
of a new division, Curvy Road® to offer fractional ownership
of exotic and high-end luxury automobiles. Positioned as an
alternative to ownership, shareholders can own driving rights
to a portion of a great vehicle they'd like to drive throughout
the year without the high costs and hassles associated with
outright purchase.
With an established, growing membership, Exotic
Car Share™ provided the experience and the infrastructure
to rapidly deploy fractional ownership vehicles to various
locations to meet the needs of Curvy Road® shareholders.
Curvy Road® was ultimately a response to what many automobile
enthusiasts were requesting. Time ownership of exotic and
high-end luxury cars fills a large void in today's automotive
world, and is the one way to experience multiple great world-class
cars for a fraction of the cost.
Headquartered at the Exotic Car Share campus
in Palatine, Illinois, Curvy Road® also has shared-locations
in Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; and Albuquerque, NM to serve the needs of
shareholders nationwide. Expansion plans continue in order
to respond to the increasing demand.
Exotic Car Share and its divisions are currently
operated by 10 employees & partners. The principals in
the firm are: the founders, George Kiebala, CEO, and Kathy
Kiebala, CFO.
The Exotic Car Share team is made up of a passionate
crew of specialists who share a common goal: offering a fun,
unique, rewarding and safe experience to members who appreciate
fine automobiles.
The only way a club such as this can work is
if the members and shareholders all appreciate the cars for
what they are and treat them with care and respect for the
other club members and shareholders who’ll be using
the car in a couple of weeks.
As a result, Exotic Car Share asks members to
submit to a rigorous screening process. This process includes
an abstract of their driver's record, a credit report, a fingerprint
record and an address verification. Curvy Road shareholders
also must qualify under similar requirements.
The rigorous screening process protects the
interest and investment of each member and shareholder. Also,
to ensure a good match between car & driver, a 60 minute
orientation and driving familiarity session is conducted,
which helps enhance the ownership experience and minimize
problems due to unfamiliarity or a bad match between member
and vehicle.
Now in our tenth year, and with over 1,100 members,
all involved in Exotic Car Share are committed to maximizing
the enjoyment of the experience for our members and shareholders.
As the membership club and fractional ownership division expand,
plans call to increase the size of the membership fleet to
offer an even greater variety and more choices for fractional
ownership.
A member feedback committee and an interactive
website help the staff stay in touch with the critical input
that the club’s members and shareholders provide.
Visit the exotic car share campus in Palatine
and find out (just how great it can be to cruise around in
the car you’ve wanted to drive for years). Just ask
any of the 900+ Exotic Car Share™ members who’ve
experienced it for themselves!
- To provide our members with the unique
experience & thrill of exotic and classic car
ownership, cost-effectively, through fractional ownership
and through Exotic Car Share membership.
- Furthermore to ensure that the member
environment and all vehicles in our fleet are in excellent
condition for all members so their experience exceeds
their expectations.
- To promote the awareness & understanding
of the new concept of fractional ownership of exotic
cars, and to expand the reach of our service to the
widest possible consumer and corporate markets.
- To lead the industry by example, by
exhibiting creativity and extreme customer service
and by operating with integrity and honesty in every
aspect of our business.
- Equally, to show respect for each
other and for ourselves, as well as for our members,
prospective members, vendors and third parties,
- To actively support
the community,
- Also, to expect honesty, and
respect for the world-class vehicles in our fleet,
from all members and from all employees and service
vendors, as well as from ourselves.
To use our success to contribute to our
employees’ growth and to the improvement of the
community we operate in, as well as, ultimately, to
the betterment of our society at large. |
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