Car lovers, start your engines
Company offers a luxury-vehicle drive
How about all of them? How about all in one day?
A local startup company soon will let folks start up those road rockets and tool down the road in style.
"These are some amazing cars that most of us never have a chance to drive or own, but people can try them out for a day, get a feel for it and enjoy the cars for a day," said Russ Smith, co-founder of Day Dreamin' Exotics LLC (www.daydreaminexotics.com).
Hailed as Utah's first exotic-car day-tour company, it will offer drivers a chance to spend about 30 minutes each in a Porsche 911 Turbo, Ferrari 360 Modena Coupe, Aston Martin Vantage, Lotus Exige and Dodge Viper SRT-10 Convertible. Led by a pace car, the caravan will snake from Salt Lake to Midway to Provo Canyon and Kamas on a 150-mile trek.
The introductory driving rate is $500 (drivers must be at least 21 years old). Bringing along a passenger (at least 13 years old) is $150 more.
"The really cool thing about our company is, not only are we the first one for Utah, but we're priced for Utah," Smith said. "If you go to Vegas or California, they'll charge you $1,500 or $2,000.
At a car expo earlier this year, about half the people interested in the tour thought $500 was a lot of money to pay, while the other half were geared-up because they found it inexpensive. "It depends on your perspective and where you're at," Smith said.
While checking out the cars during a Friday company kickoff party, Don Thomason of West Jordan said he and wife Lynn will sign up for a tour.
"I just love the performance," he said of the cars. "It's not every day you've got the opportunity to drive one of these. Some of these are very unique. This Aston — there's only 300 of those made a year."
Smith, a physician, car enthusiast and Porsche owner, operates Day Dreamin' Exotics with Ian Harding, owner of Luxury Imports Online. "My patients totally laugh at me," Smith said. "They say, 'Are you not making enough money?' But I'm not doing this to make money, but to have fun. What's cool to me is to see other people have fun in these cool cars."
But if "fun" is zooming along at 160 mph, go somewhere else.
"Obviously, we're on open roads, and we don't condone people going 100 mph or whatever," Smith said. "To me, the excitement of a car like this is not going 100 or 120 or whatever. It's the zero to 70 mph that is so fun. That's the fun part. When you sink back into the seat — oh, gosh, that's so fun."
The first day tours will start April 12 and run mainly on weekends. Smith envisions the business branching out to other tour routes and beyond individuals. He believes corporations may sign up, using the tours as incentives for employees to a "totally different way to wine-and-dine customers."
"It sounds fun," said Bill Floyd of Draper, looking over the cars Friday. He believes business executives, company owners and car enthusiasts will climb aboard. "I think there will be a big market for it, for people who have too much money to burn."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com
Recent comments
This is a fun thing to do, I think I will take my Porsche Carerra...
Ute Alum | April 5, 2008 at 9:42 a.m.
