Hugh Oram meets a man who can rent you a flash motor - anything from aFerrari to a Porsche.
At last, we've met someone in the motor trade who's happy that business is booming. Then again, his customers are not subject to the same financial problems as most of us.
Robert Lyne bills his firm as "Ireland's only sports, convertible and exotic car company". Located in Ballsbridge, Beaufort Car Rentals rents top-of-the-range cars. His dearest car is a Ferrari 355 - €818 a day or €1,898 for a weekend. His cheapest is a BMW 5 Series - €158 a day or €755 a week. Rates include comprehensive insurance.
Lyne, from Co Clare, loves cars. He worked as a solicitor for four years before cars took over, but says his legal background is invaluable. He reckons he's the youngest person ever to get a driving licence in this country. He passed his test on his 17th birthday in 1984, but the time of his birth meant that he did his test a few hours in advance of his birthday, a nice legal point.
Cars were also part of his upbringing. His father, also Robert, was an AA patrolman - he now owns National Car Rentals and a Mazda dealership in Co Clare. The family also own hotels around the country - marketed as Irish Court Hotels.
Lyne, the younger, followed the family business and owns a couple of hotels in Killarney, as well as having other property interests. Nearly seven years ago, he decided to set up his own company to rent out top-of-the-range cars.
His first car for rental was a Ferrari 348 tb, a 1991 model in near perfect condition. He explains that if he had a 03 reg Ferrari, he'd charge about €2,500 for two days to make it an economic proposition, but says that Ferrari lines haven't changed much and that it looks very much the classic sports car.
Its top speed, from the 3.4-litre V8 engine, is over 170 mph and he has got it up to maximum speed on the old Nurburgring in Germany and also on a track in Austria.
The Ferrari is a real head turner, as I saw on a recent drive with Robert Lyne. Sometimes people follow the car for a closer look. It's not the easiest car to get into and the ride is rougher than a convertible, but zooming to 60 mph in five seconds must be similar to being in a military jet taking off. The raw power of the Ferrari is deeply impressive. A drive in the Jaguar XK8 convertible, by comparison, was smoothness personified.
The Ferrari cars, the Jaguar XK8 convertible and the Porsche Boxter are the most popular cars in the fleet. He has about 10 cars and expects to have a dozen in the summer. Currently, the fleet includes BMWs; Ferraris; Jaguars; Mercedes-Benz; Porsche and Range Rovers. Ironically, he started to sell some of them when the Celtic Tiger collapsed, but found he had to restock again. It's a huge investment buying and keeping the cars but, like everything in the fleet, he has to be able to sell it on.
Customers always look for something different, so he aims to bring in new models every year. Overheads are kept tight and the company has one employee, Rosemary Nevin, the office manager. She looks after bookings; online bookings account for about 5 per cent of the total. The company also has a website.
Customers embrace a wide spectrum. Recently, two waiters from Dublin rented a Ferrari for a day. In another recent case, two women in their late 50s/early 60s rented a BMW convertible for the day, planned their schedule with precision and came back, Lyne says, like "two little kids" who never had so much fun before. The gender mix of customers is changing and more women are renting the cars. "They know exactly what they want," he says.
One regular customer lives in Dalkey, works in the IFSC and commutes on the DART. He doesn't own a car, so whenever he wants to spoil himself, he rings up Beaufort. The cars are also popular for weddings and rental gift vouchers make an ideal present. They are also used for sales presentations and staff incentive schemes. Celebrities, too, love these cars. Recent clients include Billy Connolly (a Saab convertible); Michael Flatley (a Porsche Boxter 2.5) and Russell Crowe (a Range Rover and Mercedes).
The quiet months are January, November and February but, as soon as the sun starts to shine, the customers flock in. Despite differences in costs and service charges between here and the UK, he reckons that his rental charges are as competitive as for similar services in the UK. He rarely advertises and finds that, if he parks one of the cars by a main road and puts a sign in the window, that generates lots of enquiries. Most of his advertising is word of mouth.
One neat sales touch is that the cars are stacked with CDs, with Elvis, the Beatles and Robbie Williams being popular. Customers return the CDs afterwards or pay extra to keep them.
Lyne takes care to ensure that customers are who they say they are, and can pay. He won't take bank drafts and only accepts payment by credit card. Customers have to give authorisation of up to €2,500 on their card, in case of damage. But in the past two years, he's only had one case of a customer damaging a car.
People also must be at least 25 years old and sometimes 30, and need an unendorsed licence for at least three years. Customers from abroad must produce a passport while the cars can only be seen by prior appointment. He's also in favour of the penalty points system, as it encourages people to drive his cars with care. Recently a customer who was driving one of Lyne's cars ended up in court in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, having been caught doing 143 mph.
Robert Lyne isn't in the business of renting high performance and quality cars to make a good deal of money, more for the sheer fun of it. He just loves cars. In the process, he's that rare person who's not grumbling about the state of business. And his own car? When everything is rented out, the car he uses himself is a very reliable 1988 Mitsubishi Galant.