Press Sighting: American Executive | Gotham Dream Cars

Press Sighting: American Executive

April 1, 2009

American Executive highlighted GDC in a piece in their April 2009 issue.  And how can you have anything but love for an author that describes the sound of a Murcielago as "the possessed offspring of Axl Rose and Aretha Franklin"? :)  Click below for the full story...

Funny thing, though:  when you’re rocketing down the freeway, your heart hammering in your chest as your head snaps back into the beast’s contoured leather seats, the Murciélago’s scream becomes the sweetest song.

The notes still ring in your ears when the scissor door rises and you step to the pavement – an alient emerging from its spaceshit and seeing earth for the first time.

Wow.

And your journey is just beginning.  At Gotham Dream Cars’ aptly named Dream Car Tour, you’ve still got five more of the most exotic luxury sports cars in the world to drive – and they’ve all got their own unique song to sing.

“What did you think?” Gotham’s founder and president Noah Lehmann-Haupt asks with a knowing grin when you’ve completed your half-day on the Dream Tour.

Don’t worry if you can’t speak.  The look on your face says it all.

Truly Exotic

Lehmann-Haupt co-founded financial software company TruExchange while he was still a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He sold the start-up to a New York company in 2005, moved to the Big Apple to help with the transition, and never left.

“New York is an incrible city,” he said.  “You could eat out every night and never go to the same restaurant.  There is nowhere else like it in the world.”

Just 26 years old and already an entrepreneur in his own right, Lehmann-Haupt began searching for his next venture.  A car nut, he recognized the exotic car rental services in and around New York, which offered names like the Dodge Viper and even the PT Cruiser, didn’t offer what he considered to be truly exotic cars:  Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley and Aston Martin.  After some research, Lehmann-Haupt discovered that anywhere between 50 and 75 people per month were typing Google searches for truly exotic cars in and around New York – and he know they were coming up empty.

Opportunity knocked, and Lehmann-Haupt answered by buying a Ferrari 360 Modena and launching Gotham Dream Cars.  “Gotham Dream Cars was founded for a very simple reason:  we searched for a place to rent a super car in the Northeast, and we didn’t find any worth a phone call,” he said.

Four years later, thousands have made the call to Gotham Dream Cars.  The company now boasts a sparkling fleet valued at more than $3 million, a second location in Dania Beach, Florida, and a ranking on Inc.’s list of the 500 fastest growing companies.  And according to its owner, the company is just getting started.

Speed, power, adrenaline

Lehmann-Haupt showed his knack for running a successful business early on at Gotham Dream Cars by expanding the company’s offerings and finding different revenue streams.

With winter weather in and around New York City not conducive to driving $200,000 sports cars, Lehmann-Haupt effectively made the business year-round when he opened the Delray Beach location in December 2006.  The company purchased its own vehicles to transport the fleet in the winter months and created another revenue generator by using the trucks to transport customer vehicles north and south.

That same year, the company launched its DreamShare Club, a cousin to fractional ownership.  The DreamShare program gives members access to the company’s entire fleet of cars any time they want for a fixed annual fee.  Take a date out in a Bentley one night and then grab the keys to a Ferrari for the weekend – with DreamShare, it’s as easy as that.

And for those who don’t have the budget for the DreamShare Club, there is the Dream Car Tour, your chance to get behind the wheel of six different super cars, driving each for 20 to 30 minutes on the open road for a half-day adventure – all for under $900.

From the Ferrari F430 to the Lamborghini Gallardo to the Porsche 911 GT3 (and many more), Gotham Dream Cars features some of the world’s greatest vehicles, and the Dream Car Tour is your opportunity to hear them all sing.

“Our passion is driving, pure and simple,” Lehmann-Haupt says.  “The speed.  The power.  The adrenaline.  That’s why our mission is to bring you the most exotic, exciting, and outrageous fleet of rental vehicles in the world – cars you won’t find anywhere else.  And as we expand that mission to other cities around the country and around the world, we hope you will be there with us.  It’s time to stop dreaming and start driving.”  -- Michael Sharkey