Monaco Part 2 - not the racing

It's taken me 5 days to recover from our busman's holiday of almost stag-party like proportions. It all started on Thursday when we called all the members with weekend bookings and told them they could have their car for free on Thursday, so we could close the office early and run off to Monaco!

Of course Monaco is not just about F1...it's also about losing a lot of money!

We got in on Thursday night and spent Friday on the golf course (paying 100 euros to lose another 30 euros of golf balls). Friday night was spent in the casino losing even more money.

On Saturday night we were supposed to be on Eddie Jordan's boat party but he cancelled it so we were a bit stranded. Jon, Simon and I wandered around soaking up the atmosphere and were about to get the last train back to Nice until we suddenly got lucky and managed to gate-crash the Red-Bull party. Oh, if only we had got the train...you see I don't even like Red Bull so all I drank was neat vodka all night...needless to say by 4am I was back to my old college habits - doing the "chilli kebab" and playing poker with my house mates (losing even more money).

By Sunday night I was pooped and decided to take it easy soaking up the display of exotica (all varieties), around Casino Square. I'm definitely getting old.

Monaco Part 1 - the racing

This blog is in two parts - this one is about our hospitality suite for the F1 racing and the next one is about everything else around it!

The apartment we had was hovering right over the uphill straight towards casino square - with views across the swimming pool complex and even some of the pits (if you had binoculars).

You could even have poured a pint of beer over Hamilton as he walked past us on the way back to the pits on qualifying day - I didn't, but I admit the thought did cross my mind!

Actually I'm quite proud of this photo because the cars come up so fast, with the slow shutter speeds on these new digital cameras you have to photograph the car before it is in the picture in order to catch one - this is my best from about 50 attempts!

Based on the success of this inaugural trip, I think we'll try and get 40 people to come next year which should mean we can have our own e25 boat at the entrance to the swimming pool complex and host our own parties in the evenings.

Next franchise - sneaky peaks!

I was in Leeds today meeting with the owners of a car rental business. They have depots in 4 locations around the Yorkshire area and seem very interested in an e25 franchise for the Yorkshire area.

It makes a lot of sense - they are experienced in handling cars and have a demonstrable track record in growing automotive businesses; so with a bit of luck and negotiation we may well have a North of England presence before the end of the Summer.

Tomorrow I'm off to Monaco to host a party of 25 e25 members at our private terrace for the Monaco Grand Prix - I don't really want to go but someone has to look after them!!!

[photos and gorey details next week, ciao!]

NI launch party

Our NI franchise held their launch party last weekend.

Despite the incessant rain, there was a decent turnout and they even signed up 4 people on the day - I didn't think that sort of thing happened anymore.

They are now just shy of 20 members within 3 weeks of launching. Which is pretty amazing considering their business plan was to reach 35 members by the end of the first year.

Nice picture of me with my phone welded to my ear as usual!

The New XKR has arrived

The new Jag XKR arrived yesterday...

I must admit I was originally quite sceptical about whether a Jag can 'cut it' in a supercar club but the feedback from members at the reLocation party in February was positive enough to encourage me to get the car into the fleet.

It will be interesting to see what members think about how it drives - for my part I am quite surprised by how much I like it; but I'll leave the auto reviews to the petrolheads.

The arrival of this car is a landmark for the club because it is the first time the club has sourced a car direct from a manufacturer and hopefully signals an era of closer relationship with OEMs.

A big round of applause to my old friend Gary Knight who was part of the team that designed this car and made the deal happen.

Movida Party!

Ilke and I went to the Black Palace Club charity auction last night at Movida. Good to be out clubbin' again after the long winter nights!

e25 was one of the sponsors so we got a few free tix, and the Moet was flowing freely. It was good fun catching up with some members, although I did take a bit of stick for the lack of cars in the fleet right now - we have 2 cars in for extensive repairs and we are still awaiting delivery of our latest new arrival so availability is a bit tight; normally it would not be a problem at this time of year but given the recent bout of sunny weather everyone is making hay (while the sun shines). Still it is not ideal and we are trying to get more cars in asap.

Poker Night

I missed out on the poker night last week but judging from the pictures it was quite a night. Congratulations to Gary Fielding who won a weekend in one of our F430 Spiders but if you ask me the real winner is the guy in the background of this picture who's getting a massage from an attractive blonde!

Pistonheads post and the future of the club

For those of you who have been following the debate on PH about P1 and the future of supercar clubs, available here , I have repeated my one and only post which was removed by a moderator on grounds of being advertising -amazing decision since it was the only post e25 has made in 30 pages of postings!

"In particular I feel it is important to respond to the note posted by P1OLD since it directly impacts our business prospects! He/She is unfortunately correct – the P1 model is fundamentally flawed. The points/mileage model was invented at Classic Car Club, replicated by P1 and then copied the world over by every other supercar club. It works for classics because a) you don’t drive the cars very far and b) the cars suffer very little mileage depreciation anyway. Of course with supercars both points are not valid. High mileage users kill the economic viability of the clubs. We realised this at e25 about a year ago and hence we switched to a “time in cars plus mileage in cars” points system. I am sure over time many more clubs will be adopting this model, and I would be wary of any club that continues to operate the old system because it means that they do not understand their costs and will eventually fail. For a fuller explanation of why this is the case, and to see the offer that we are making to P1 members (thank you kyle-my-boy for reproducing it in PH), please visit http://www.ecurie25.co.uk/e25-for-p1-members.html . By the way, we do offer a Premium membership plan with free delivery/collection within 75 miles of our base in London - capturing most of Surrey.

We also operate a vehicle charter programme – boat charters and jet companies do it so why not supercars – it helps us manage our costs at the same time as provide members with more choice. Do get in touch if you want to earn some extra cash from your car in these lean times!

As for membership declining in the current market, that is just not the case. I don’t really know why because I would have thought it would decline in the current market but perhaps now more than ever people accept that it is cheaper to get their adrenalin kicks from a club. In any case our membership is growing right now.

Whilst I am posting, I might as well make a few other points!

Someone mentioned about wanting clubs to be more social – at e25 we run a series of well attended events – this year already we have hosted a relocation party which over 200 people attended, and a HyperCar show which had people queueing outside our door to pay and come in. Our next event is the Poker Tournament at the end of this month, see http://www.ecurie25.co.uk/events-e25.html for more details - “you have to know when to hold ‘em”!

I think cris9964’s view is a common one – for some people, the novelty of driving Ferrari’s at or around the point where you would lose your licence is ‘fine’ but they eventually want to take their experience further – without worrying about their licence! At the moment we are developing plans to trial a couple of cars that can be taken on track and even a link up with a racing academy for less proficient trackers. If the trial goes well, a central part of our growth strategy will be to locate new clubs closer to racetracks.

Finally good luck to Richard and Nick – we all need you to be successful. "

e25 goes live in NI

I've just flown back from Northern Ireland where e25 has just launched its first franchise.

The franchisees Philip, Jon and Denise McAuley have linked up with the famous Galgorm Resort and Spa located just outside Belfast from where they will operate the club.

I didn't know it but apparently NI has the highest concentration of cars per square mile in the UK - they are petrolhead nuts so I wasn't surprised to hear that they have 12 members signed up already.

I figure that if we can demonstrate the viability of the supercar club concept in NI (pop 1.7m), then the world is our oyster!!