In March, we covered a five star hotel for cars: The Engine Room in Belgium. Besides offering secure and swanky warehouse storage for members' automotive treasures, the Engine Room is also a private club. Recently, the engine people added a third offering: The Engine Room Challenge. For annual fees ranging from EUR 15.000 to EUR 22.000, members have up to 10 weeks access to a range of exclusive cars. Automobiles to choose from include the Spyker C8, Aston Martin DB9, Rolls Royce Silver Seraph and Ferrari 456 MGTA. Membership fees cover storage, maintenance, taxes and insurance, as well as full use of the club's facilities.
In short, members get all the fun of using an exclusive car, without the hassle and unexpected costs of ownership. Which will appeal to wealthy transumers, described by trendwatching.com as those consumers that are driven by experiences instead of the 'fixed', who increasingly live a transient lifestyle, freeing themselves from the bothersome aspects of permanent ownership.
Although it's great to see them combining it with their other services, The Engine Room isn't the first to enter this space. An exclusive car sharing club we featured earlier is British ecurie 25, and trendwatching.com spotted a number of similar initiatives across the world: Classic Car Club, P1 Club, LuxShare Auto Club, Club Sportiva, Van Horrsen Group, Oversteer Spain and Ascari.
Should give you plenty of inspiration for coming up with a fractional ownership scheme of your own ;-)
Website: http://www.engineroomchallenge.be
Contact: Erik Groes, info@engineroomchallenge.be
Another Project seen in Berlin:
http://www.meilenwerk.de