Wedding car Business?

inflames

inflames

inflames

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At a family party over the weekend, got talking to family friend who has started a small wedding business with his wife, what has taking off thanks to a lot hard work and long hours form the sounds of it. They are talking about adding a wedding car to their plan. They have a budget of about 20K so its not going to be a new car. She wants a S-class and he is open to ideas. I mentioned a LS460 or Jag XJ. Now if you were in this situation what would your choice?
 
Old Bentley Turbo-R or an X350 Jag XJ. Gotta be classic looking. LS460 and X351 XJ are far too modern looking.
 
Either the Merc or the Jag are likely to be more attractive to the customer base i would imagine.

As above though, something older might be even more appealing.
 
Jaguar XJ - the shape exudes a sense of occasion. I think the general public perceive it to be a higher quality product - the royal family, prime minister etc all use one.

You can pick them up for a very reasonable price now. The interiors are pretty incredible.

The S Class is an exceptional car but with the new one out it's very much the old shape. The XJ at the present time, while it has been face-lifted (where you can barely notice the difference) remains the same shape it was in 2009. The S Class was replaced by an all new, markedly different looking, model 3-4 years ago.

The Lexus just wouldn't cut it as a wedding car. Business Chauffeuring; sure. But general public doesn't want a Lexus for the special occasion. Well they don't want at Lexus at all based on their longstanding issues of trying to be serious competitors to MB, BMW etc :p
 
Would have to be the Jag, but older classics I'd imagine are more in demand. They bring with them a whole host of reliability issues though.

Wedding cars are typically expensive to hire, think ours were £800 two years ago for about 3 hours total during the day. I can see why they are interested in the idea.
 
[TW]Fox said:
Buy a crap old XJ for 2500 quid and charge it out at hundreds per day. Seems to be the way many firms do it :p
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Seemed to be pretty much what they were doing where my sister got married - IIRC options were the Jag, Mercedes E class saloon and a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud 1 all of which didn't look strictly road legal to me and driven into the ground.

EDIT: Though from a quick google I'm guessing they didn't buy the Rolls for 2500.
 
TS7 said:
Jaguar XJ - the shape exudes a sense of occasion. I think the general public perceive it to be a higher quality product - the royal family, prime minister etc all use one.

You can pick them up for a very reasonable price now. The interiors are pretty incredible.

The S Class is an exceptional car but with the new one out it's very much the old shape. The XJ at the present time, while it has been face-lifted (where you can barely notice the difference) remains the same shape it was in 2009. The S Class was replaced by an all new, markedly different looking, model 3-4 years ago.

The Lexus just wouldn't cut it as a wedding car. Business Chauffeuring; sure. But general public doesn't want a Lexus for the special occasion. Well they don't want at Lexus at all based on their longstanding issues of trying to be serious competitors to MB, BMW etc :p
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Couldn't put it better myself, the jag wins hands down for me, as you said the sense of occasion. The s-class for me is a great and would work as a wedding car. The lexus LS460 is a great car, but does not have the sense of occasion.
 
see I don't think this works - for me the business car should be used for its purpose only. Can't help but think the car would end up looking beyond its best fairly quickly if in daily use then trying to get it cleaned up for the business use several days a month
 
rodenal said:
see I don't think this works - for me the business car should be used for its purpose only. Can't help but think the car would end up looking beyond its best fairly quickly if in daily use then trying to get it cleaned up for the business use several days a month
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Not sure on this myself, for me i would want to keep for the business use as much as possible. All i can say he use to drive a private hire Taxi, i have to say it was always clean and still looked almost new when he sold it.
 
Range rovers, roll royces and limousines are their best bet for mass market appeal.

I don't see why anyone would hire an E class and the likes for their wedding.

If it was me though I'd be going down the horse and carriage route
 
I work in the business and I would say one car isn't enough. Organising the transport you almost have to become a wedding planner. Weddings are a lot of waiting around, we have S-classes and access to a few vintage cars. But in support we also have E-classes, BMW 5 series and some Executive Minibuses. You also need a back up if your car breaks on the big day. You may also need a private hire licence and operators licence to operate depending on the local authority. The car would then need plating.

It is also not all that well paid for an S-class. Transport can be as little as £150 for a short registry office wedding, then you are still waiting around loads. Puking in the car is also not uncommon occurrence sadly nowadays along with all the other nonsense from weddings.

Personally we try to aim for more executive airport transfers as they are less hassle and pay more.
 
A friend imported a 1955 Chevy Bel Air from the US as a toy. Really nice looker.

Was asked to do a wedding and got more attention than the bride. I think it cost him under £10K but that was before Brexit.

He's been badgering me to get one so we can go in together. Old yank cars do nothing for me though.
 
rodenal said:
see I don't think this works - for me the business car should be used for its purpose only. Can't help but think the car would end up looking beyond its best fairly quickly if in daily use then trying to get it cleaned up for the business use several days a month
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How To Put Yourself Out of Car Rental Business 101 :p

You need to have the car in utilisation as much as practically possible. Doing a wedding or two a week during the wedding season isn't go to do. You'll be waiting years just to make the 20k on the car back.

Airport transfers, proms, short-term chauffeuring is essential to supplement to wedding side. The cars not going to become tatty through use. You just wash it and Hoover it. You could avoid doing things like proms to minimise risk of scuffing up the interior / vomit lol.

My friend looked in to doing this recently and it just seemed too much risk and outlay. It also didn't help the location he is in it was already full of the money laundering types who were able to undercut and had much nicer metal.
 
You may need an operators license and appointed transport manager depending on number and type of vehicles you wish to hire and the terms you offer them. If they are self drive it's simpler albeit sight different approach to the regs.

The money is in historic vehicles really. Modern exec saloons are easy enough to hire from the private hire operators for £150-£250.

As has been said you need a back up vehicle and a sub contractor agreement with another operator in case of issues unless you have sufficient fleet.

There are loads of considerations in doing this and I would consider a sub contracting arrangement before moving to operator/owner status.
 
Self drive is the way forward. And classics, American classics, is where the money is. Guy i know has 3 American classics, stingray and two 60s Mustangs. £350 a day and between March and September, he books all 3 out, every single day
 
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