Driving Out of The City

After nine years of putting his Economics degree to work as a Relationship Director at RBS, providing asset finance for commercial enterprises in the South East and London, Ben Waine's father died, and he took stock of his life.

In September 2009, he and a former customer, Stephen Price, created a partnership and established a car hire business called Premiere Velocity. Then, in the middle of the biggest recession this country had seen, they set out to buy £1m worth of cars.

Clearly this is not your average (or even above-average) car hire business, and these aren't your average guys.

What made you decide there was a gap in the market for a Luxury, Prestige and Supercar hire business?

The idea came from Stephen, who had been supplying Supercars to the trade for about five years and knew the industry inside and out. Going out on your own is a big step, but he knew all there was to know about the cars and the market, and I knew where to get the money and how to run the financial side of the business. Within a couple of months, it became clear that the demand for a quality vehicle hire company was there, and the capacity to capture a lot of the market by direct marketing, ease of purchase and first class customer service was obvious. We soon had secured premises just 10 minutes north of London, and lined up two members of staff to enable a full delivery and collection service to clients.

For those of us who need a bit of background here, what are the cars defined as Luxury, Prestige and Supercar?

Top marques such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Maserati and Bentley are the cars that make up the Supercar side of our fleet. Land Rover, Mercedes, BMW and Audi are the Prestige brands that people look for when they want something for that special occasion or important business meeting. The definition of Luxury encapsulates all of the above brands, but we ensure clients come back again and again by securing the very best that the Prestige brands have to offer. All our Land Rover products are not the standard models, but the top of the price range HSE models, our Mercedes S Class models are Brabus editions, to ensure the client stands out in the crowd. We even offer the Porsche Panamera and the bespoke Range Rover Revere, vehicles chosen to be that little bit different from what our competitors offer.

Your services include weddings, corporate hire, hire for fun, chauffeur services, and hire to visitors who wish to collect their car at the airport. Have you been surprised by any of the services being more successful than you expected?

The biggest surprise to me is the amount of calls we have for wedding hire for the groom and his friends. Quite often a groom will arrive with his group of friends and take two or three cars for their wedding weekend. It's funny, because when they come back, most have forgotten they have got married, they just talk about how amazing the cars were and how much they impressed the wedding guests! I suppose it makes the move in to blissful marriage a little easier.

The tourist is also a great customer of ours. Chinese and Arab businessman come year-round, and the summer tourists keep us busy from April through September. People will also take a Supercar for a week or so when family come to visit to give their guests an experience they will never forget.

Now what we're seeing more of is the urban dweller taking a car a few times a year to visit friends in the UK or escape to the country for a short break. Many people living in London have realised that the expense involved in owning a top end car (depreciation, tax, insurance, parking) is too much for the occasional journey, so they call us to hire a car when they actually need one. With London becoming more and more gridlocked and the cost of road tax and insurance heading skywards, this will become an even greater part of our business.

How does it work, given you need to have the newest models every year? Do you sell the old ones? Lease them from the manufacturers?

Yes, thanks for this question, this is what leads to my sleepless nights!

This is where Stephen and I do clash quite often! Stephen knows the importance of having the latest and greatest vehicles to ensure we stay ahead of the competition, and to keep customers coming back. In my capacity as chief number cruncher, I know the importance of ensuring that the vehicles earn us enough money before moving them on, and so replacement policy is very much the tricky part of the business. All the Supercars are on hire purchase; thus we are buying them over a period of time. The other vehicles are on a mixture of contract hire and hire purchase. I have structured the fleet this way as we will not keep many of the Prestige Vehicles beyond two years as they do too much mileage, whereas the Supercars we try and run to the end of the third year, or at least until a new model comes out.

And lastly, any funny requests you can share?

Absolutely not! Needless to say, we do get some strange requests from time to time, but with our network of contacts, we have yet to come across a request that we cannot fulfil!

To find out more about about Premiere Velocity, click here.