The first time Miles Powell got behind the wheel of an exotic car, it was something of a fluke, back when he was 25 years old. Standing outside of a friend's apartment complex before a game of tennis, he watched as a man drove up to the curb in a cherry red Lotus Esprit Turbo. After a brief conversation, the stranger tossed Powell the keys and told him to take it for a spin – alone – while he ran into the complex’s rental office.
Tennis would have to wait.
Fifteen years later, the day of his 40th birthday, Powell was, again, given the keys to an exotic car from a complete stranger. Sitting at the breakfast table with his wife and father-in-law, the doorbell rang. In the driveway was a Ferrari 360 Spider, a surprise rental car organized by his wife Melissa through the McLean-based Capital Dream Cars.
"I had never driven a Ferrari before. I was worried," said the Oakton car enthusiast. "I didn’t want to wreck the thing or strip the gears. But it was surprisingly easy to tool around in."
Powell and his wife spent the majority of the daylong rental driving around town and then out to Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah.
"Everyone was ogling at it," said Powell. "You don’t go anywhere unrecognized."
According to Jumi Kim, co-owner of Capital Dream Cars, Powell’s birthday surprise is a common scenario for renting with her company.
"Our client base tends to be more mature in terms of drivers, but more than one-third tend to be women who buy them as surprise gifts for their boyfriends or husbands," she said.
Partly rented to gear-heads who have a passion for luxury vehicles, Kim also believes the level of attention their fleet of cars garner while on the road is part of the company’s appeal.
"I’ve never seen as many people taking pictures on their cell phones then when I’m driving a Lamborghini," she said. "You get people who will drive up and be going crazy."
A NICHE-MARKET company that opened in March of 2006, Capital Dream Cars was founded by husband and wife team Jumi and Eugene Kim and long time friend James Kim. The idea grew out of a love of Ferraris and Formula 1 racing, which the three have traveled to Montreal and Indianapolis to watch. But for Kim, her love of fast and rare cars was more of learned interest than an inherent one.
"It’s a hobby that turned into a business," she said. "It’s always something they were into. [Eugene’s] hobbies are anything with an engine in it."
With a background in teaching literature at both high school and collegiate levels, Kim took over the majority of company operations, getting a crash course lesson in starting a new business.
"We really started planning for the company a year before we launched," said Kim. "The first thing we tackled was insurance."
According to Kim, the three company partners and a team of lawyers split up a list of insurance companies and began making contacts.
"It took us a half-a-year of non-stop talking before we even began to be considered," said Kim. "When there is no market, they just don’t do it – they’re very strict."
The company also applied for a rental license and, with every sale, must pay a rental tax of 10 percent to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. Adding up insurance payments, taxes, maintenance and other costs, Kim points out that "there is a method to the madness as to why the [rental] rates are so high."
With a Ferrari 360 Spider, Bentley Continental GT and Lamborghini Gallardo – all with an MSRP of more than $150,000 – it’s not surprising the company requires a number of insurance and driver eligibility checks before allowing a customer to drive away. And as a security precaution, Capital Dream Cars also uses GPS and monitoring technology to notify the office if a driver is speeding excessively or has taken the car to prohibited areas, such as states outside of the allowed driving region or auto race-tracks.
"We are not so much Big Brother – it’s preventative," said Kim. "If they know it’s there, they will be good with the car."
For added security, the company-owned cars – not including the Rolls-Royce Phantom and Maybach, which are brokered by private owners – are locked in a commercial garage away from the Tyson’s corner office.
"We like having everything as secret as possible," said Kim.
BUT WHEN OUT on the road, these cars are far from a secret – something Jamie and Meagan Cooper found out during their wedding last year at Lansdowne in Leesburg.
"My wife is actually more into the fun cars than I am, but once we got it, it was an unbelievable experience," said Cooper, a paramedic firefighter from Leesburg. "It was more like you’re operating as commander of an F-16."
"At the rehearsal dinner, the majority of the guys were standing at the car," Cooper continued. "The best man would have been the only one I would have let drive it but he didn’t ask."
Almost a year since they rented the car, Cooper said that the two are looking for another reason to rent again.
"I certainly wouldn’t be able to afford the payments on a luxury vehicle," he said. "This is an affordable way to have fun."
But for those who don’t reach the age requirement of 25 years, Capital Dream Cars also offers a chauffeuring service with its two four-passenger sedans – a Rolls-Royce Phantom and Maybach both privately brokered vehicles. Often rented by area businesses for out-of-town clients, Kim says it’s not uncommon for the cars to make appearances at galas or proms. In fact, during prom and graduation season, the cars are usually taken out multiple times each weekend.
Much like Cooper, Powell would also like to find a reason to rent again – he heard the company recently acquired a Lamborghini Gallardo. He believes that for those who rent these cars for pleasure, it provides a fun way to escape the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
"On an emotional level, people associate with the physical beauty," he said. "There is also this unattainable value to it – it’s kind of an escapism. Lifestyles of the rich and famous kind of stuff."