REPOST: Wretched excess? L.A.'s first members-only race car club

Members-only clubs are not uncommon in Los Angeles. However, this race car club founded by a French entrepreneur is a dream come true for the city’s car enthusiasts; however, it comes with a hefty membership fee. Learn more about the Fast Toys Club on this LA Times article.

French entrepreneur Chris Carel has founded Fast Toys Club, an exclusive
members-only organization for car enthusiasts willing to pay a minimum
$30,000 a year for access to exotic cars and race cars.
Image Source: latimes.com

Sociologists looking for new evidence of conspicuous consumption — look no further.
A French entrepreneur who made his money in the telecom business has founded a pricey members-only club in Los Angeles for hot car enthusiasts. 

Called Fast Toys Club, the Brentwood outfit gives its members access to a fleet of almost a dozen very high-end cars, including an Aston Martin DBS Volante, a Porsche 911 Turbo, an Audi R8, a Mercedes G63 AMG and Rolls Royce Phantom. (To add supercar firepower to the club, a Ferrari California T has been ordered.) 

For the race track, the club also offers a Pescarolo Le Mans prototype, a Ferrari 360 Challenge and a Mustang Boss 302S. 

Membership comes at a price. A basic package, at $30,000 a year, gets you the keys to any car in the garage worth less than $150,000 — for up to 100 days a year. The $50,000 deluxe package gets you 100 days a year in anything the club owns. A corporate package for $70,000 buys time for five drivers. 

And the Rolls comes with its own driver. 

Founder Chris Carel modeled the club on similar businesses in England and his native France, and said he conceived the company after his own race car habit (all three track cars in the collection are his) started eating up too much of his money. 

“I started to own one exotic car, and then another, then a third one,” said Carel, who lives in Pacific Palisades and bases his company in Brentwood. “Then I tried the race track, and I loved it, and so I wanted to buy a race car. Then it started to become expensive.” 

Assuming other car enthusiasts must have the same problem, Carel spent $2.7 million of his own money building the fleet and starting the club, which he said now has 10 members.
Members who make their own cars available to the club receive discounts, and earn credits as their cars are used by others in the club. 

For those of us too poor to actually purchase high-end rides, and perhaps even too poor to join the Fast Toys Club, other Southern California businesses cater to the same tastes.
At Vanity Exotics, for example, you can get that same Mercedes GL63 AMG for as little as $249 a day, an Aston Martin Vantage starting at $399, or a Ferrari 458 Italia for $1,499. A Lamborghini Aventador runs as much as $9,000 a day. 

The Manhattan Beach company said the Lamborghini Gallardo — at $499 to $799, depending on mileage — is its top-renting car.

Arnaud Massartic hopes to have a wide collection of vintage and exotic cars that he can someday share with his fellow car enthusiasts. Follow him on Tumblr for more related stories.

REPOST: If Cars Can Monitor Left-On Headlights and Rear Obstructions, They Should Be Able To Save Trapped Kids’ Lives

The article below reports on the latest car technologies used to prevent injuries and deaths of children in and around motor vehicles.

Today, technology saves your car battery—tomorrow, it could save your child 

Image Source: www.ems.gov 

Thursday is National Heatstroke Prevention Day, so here is a little fact for your awareness: In the past 20 years more than 670 U.S. children have died of heatstroke in hot cars. To date this yearKidsAndCars.org has recorded 18 such fatalities, including the death last week of a 10-month-old girl in Wichita, Kansas, who was unknowingly left in a vehicle on a 90-degree day. 

How can we prevent this failure of memory? The auto industry obviously recognizes that we’re human and our memories often fail us: our cars are able to warn us if we leave our headlights on, our keys are in the ignition, a door is open, we’re low on fuel, if our seatbelt isn’t buckled… If we can monitor our headlights or gas levels, we should be able to get a signal that a child has been forgotten.Our national advocacy nonprofit works year-round to educate parents and caregivers about these dangers, including a nationwide “Look before you lock” program. But education is not enough when all it takes is a simple change in a daily routine to cause a parent to drive past their childcare center and forget their child in the back seat. Current state laws require putting your baby in a rear-facing child safety seat, which has saved the lives of thousands of children in car crashes. An unintended consequence of this shift is that when out of sight, quiet little unobtrusive passengers can slip out of mind. 

Image Source: www.mssinglemama.com

Some of the technology options currently on the market include car seat monitors and alert systems, key fobs connected to car seats that sound a reminder and weight-sensitive mats. One system activates when the driver has opened the back door to strap in the car seat, and then sounds a reminder chime when the driver leaves the vehicle. Mobile apps have hit the market, such as Cars-n-Kids Carseat Monitor, which connects with the carseat via a sensor, or the Amber Alert GPS, which tracks your child in or out of the car.

These after-market systems may be useful reminders to some people, but they have not all been tested, and they are not the failsafe solution we need in every vehicle. Furthermore, a 2012 study on “Evaluation of Reminder Technology” sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that a few of these systems were not always reliable.

Safety is something every family deserves. It shouldn’t be optional, like 4WD or leather seats. And it shouldn’t be political. The federal government and automakers along with safety advocates have the ability to solve this problem.

Image Source: www.care2.com

KidsAndCars.org recently launched a petition to push the Obama Administration to authorize the U.S. Department of Transportation to provide funding for research and development of innovative technologies to detect a child left alone in the rear seat of a vehicle, such as infrared breathing sensors (a technology that already exists in certain baby monitors for the home). We also spearheaded an initiative to adopt federal safety standards that require all vehicles to be equipped with trunk release latches to prevent trunk entrapment, safer power window switches to prevent strangulation, and brake transmission shift interlock systems so children cannot inadvertently knock a vehicle into gear. In March, the DOT issued a rule requiring rear visibility systems, such as cameras, as standard equipment on all new passenger vehicles by May 2018.

Today, technology saves your car battery. Tomorrow, it could save your child.

Arnaud Massartic is an exotic car enthusiast with a natural talent for art and design. Follow him on Facebook to see his show-winning piece of art and auto works.