Limos in Business
At heart, Chris Hundley is a race car fan; a self-styled speed demon, who doesn't drink or smoke and claims his only vices are horsepower and adrenaline. As owner of the Limousine Connection chauffeur service in North Hollywood, he is a former actor, race car driver and entrepreneur who looks at ways to save fuel in the face of high prices.
His Limousine Connection, one of the oldest chauffeured transportation companies in an industry known for quick flameouts, is stable, while newer competitors struggle with trouble at the pump. But even Hundley admits he'd been "blindsided" by gas prices.
Recently, he raised his fuel surcharge 3% and has trained his chauffeurs to drive less aggressively in order to save fuel. Many corporate clients are limiting limo travel to the upper echelon of executives and asking lower-ranked employees to take taxis, he said. But everyone is tightening their belts.
So Hundley has made his operation more efficient. He tries to drive more than one passenger at a time, uses e-mail invoices to stay paperless and rents Priuses, when patrons request them. He estimates that reservations from weekend partygoers and regular Joes have slipped about 25% since the economy began wilting.
High gas prices have forced Limousine Connection to develop a more conservative image and change its limousine fleet. This included phasing out two-tone stretch limos, adding sedans and marketing the company as a business tool for the celebrity jet set.
Still, Limousine Connection is going full throttle, with 10% to 12% growth each year for the last three years and $5.1 million revenue for 2007. In a recent six-week span, Hundley bought three new cars. "People in the industry were astonished by that," he said. "Right now everyone is very apprehensive, but you've got to spend money to make money."
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