The concept of time-sharing supercars from $ 150,000 Ferraris to $ 500,000 Mercedes SLR McLarens is based on a rarefied version of austerity. After all, paying $ 30,000 or more for an annual club membership is certainly more financially prudent than actually buying one of these cars, which for the most part depreciate drastically as soon as they leave the showroom.
There are several clubs that give their members access to supercars and high performance sports cars for a specified number of days (depending on membership level), and some of the clubs said that the hard times cut both ways.
The recession has hit the whole car industry, including our business, said Rick Gaan, who operates Club Sportiva, based in Northern California and begun in 2003. Things are starting to settle down, but people are a little more gun-shy, a little more careful these days. On the positive side, when they study the value proposition they say these are weekend cars anyway, so they might as well timesha.
