The time has come to unveil our plans for the future of Classic Car Club in Scotland. We've taken a long, hard look at all the car clubs around the world and taken the best bits of them. We've talked to many current - and prospective - members, listened to what they want to drive, when they want to drive it and what they want to pay for it. Now, we've put all this together to create the blueprint for something rather special. After thousands of hours of research that’s included tax advisors, lawyers and accountants, we're ready to share it with you. No, really share it!
It’s your club…..
As with any club, Classic Car Club exists for its members, and in order to improve member experiences, we need to move quickly to take chances as they arise. The recent credit crunch, impending recession and record oil prices have combined to give us an unparalleled opportunity to make radical improvements to the club by wholesale upgrades to the fleet as people sell their expensive to run and non-essential toys at a far lower price than a year ago. Staggeringly desirable cars are becoming available to the discernible expert - and we're going to buy them on your behalf. We feel that making these changes will make the club better and membership more desirable, but in order to make them we need your help. Put simply, we're giving you the chance to make membership a lot more rewarding.
The cornerstone for our future is a new and improved fleet, and the economic climate allows us to put together one of the finest collections in the country. It'll rival anything available from clubs in London and elsewhere, but will be managed right here in the heart of Scotland for a fraction of their overhead. This will give benefits in reliability, desirability, attracting new members, and also reducing maintenance and other running costs. This can only be achieved by an injection of new capital. Following a model successfully implemented by car clubs in London and New York, we propose to raise this new capital by offering Preference Shares with extremely generous dividends and incentives to club members who wish to help in the creation of our ‘fantasy fleet’ which will be of massive benefit to all.
financial engineering
It's widely reported that the financial markets will remain volatile for some time to come, with even the highest paying savings accounts yielding after-tax interest rates which are lower than inflation. We have created a new club framework that will find a home for a fairly modest investment which is secure, more exciting - and most importantly allows you to not only have unfettered access to our new fleet, but it means you own it too - all free of maintenance and liability. Your Preference Shares deliberately don't pay a basic cash dividend - they do a whole lot more:
• Free annual membership for each year you retain shares
• Free access to ‘premium’ cars – ask for ‘new club rules’ document.
• Exclusive access to ‘investor-only’ Lamborghini Gallardo.
• Preferential upgrade option.
• Exclusive access to ‘new’ cars for 2 months.
• An underwritten, dependable investment due to the creation of a fleet holding company
• Hassle-free ownership of some truly remarkable cars.
The investment will be available in amounts of £10,000, £20,000 and £30,000 per member, and entitle the holder to free Country, Standard and Platinum memberships respectively as well as all the above benefits. The minimum holding period is 3 years, after which you will be entitled to request the full return of your investment. Should you decide not to, your benefits will continue until you do activate your request for return.
This investment will be in a newly created company (Fantasy Fleet Ltd) which can only buy cars, and upon disposal of these cars it will sell them to CCCS at its original buying price. It will have no liabilities other than to its investors, and hence your investment will be asset-backed. For full details of the mechanics of the offer, and of the interaction between CCCS and Fantasy Fleet, please ask for ‘the small print’.
This new fleet will transform the club and allow us to significantly speed our (currently organic) development. The Scotsman, The Herald and the Daily Record have all said they wish to cover the changes and new fleet in detail, with one editor going as far as to say that when we get our desired fleet, he would join at Platinum level. Our mailing list of over 1,500 people who have expressed an interest in the club in the past will also find this a most interesting development.
Many people currently running exotics are contacting us as they are fed up with the £25,000 or more per year needed to run their new Ferrari/Maserati/ Lamborghini/Porsche. As the depression deepens we expect large growth in this type of member because they find it harder to justify their ‘toy’ whilst still needing to scratch an itch. The benefits of higher member numbers are that they enable us to make many other improvements in the club more rapidly than otherwise, such as upgrading the website (a revamp has just been completed – check it out!), membership cards, club keyrings and more member events. We will also explore the possibility of new premises, both in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Oh, and more cars!
If you haven't yet received our letter and want to know more, please don't hesitate to contact us.
