Over a couple of days in early March, carmakers and limousine firm operators gathered on the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for an annual conference, the place they went to panels and events and admired shiny new celebration buses, vans and black sport utility autos.
But one thing was lacking.
“There wasn’t one stretch limousine on the show floor,” mentioned Robert Alexander, president of the National Limousine Association, a commerce group. “Not one.”
Decades in the past, stretch limos had been a logo of affluence, used nearly solely by the wealthy and well-known. Over time, they grew to become extra of a standard luxurious, booked for kids’s birthday events or by youngsters heading to the promenade.
These days, it appears as if hardly anybody is driving in a stretch limo. While the limousine identify has caught, the limo trade has shifted to chauffeur companies in nearly something however precise stretch limos, which have largely been supplanted by black S.U.V.s, buses and vans.
“The limo business isn’t your father’s limo business anymore,” Mr. Alexander mentioned.
Today, the stretch limo represents lower than 1 p.c of companies provided by limo corporations, down from about 10 p.c a decade in the past, based on the affiliation.
“The stretch limo is — what’s the expression? — gone like the dodo bird,” Mr. Alexander mentioned. “Extinct.”
Limo firm operators and trade leaders say that the demise of the stretch limo will be attributed to the cumulative impact of a sequence of blows over a number of years.
The first, they mentioned, was the Great Recession. Then got here the rise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft, and a pair of lethal stretch limo crashes that ushered in new laws in New York State, one of many trade’s most necessary markets. Over that point, stretch limos step by step fell out of favor, as passengers opted to journey considerably much less conspicuously in modern sedans or black S.U.V.s.
Horse-Drawn Wagons to Hummer Limos
The birthplace of the stretch limo is believed to have been Fort Smith, Ark. Armbruster Stageway, a coach builder that began off restoring horse-drawn wagons greater than 100 years in the past, is credited with creating the primary combustion engine limousine within the Twenties. By 1985, the corporate was one of many main producers of limos within the United States, making about 1,000 a 12 months.
But round that point, many automobile corporations stopped making limos. Specialty coachmakers crammed the void by taking a distinct strategy: slicing a sedan in half, inserting a midsection and welding every little thing collectively. For about $50,000, customized producers promised deluxe outcomes that might embody a TV and even a mattress along with the compulsory well-stocked bar.
As extra limos had been produced, they grew to become extra accessible and started attracting a clientele past celebrities and the über-rich. People started reserving them for airport journeys. A restaurant in New Jersey provided to select up diners in a limo, drive them to dinner and take them dwelling afterward. And for some suburban youngsters, it grew to become a ceremony of passage to pile right into a stretch limo throughout promenade season, usually attempting — with blended outcomes — to sneak booze previous drivers thrust into the function of reluctant chaperone.
“In the best-case scenario, somebody would use you all day to go to meetings in, let’s say, Manhattan,” Mr. Alexander mentioned, including {that a} driver might then take a shopper to a resort to clean up earlier than whisking the shopper again out in town. “That kind of coincided with kind of the nightlife of the city coming alive in the late ’70s and ’80s,” he mentioned.
Limousine operators like Scott Woodruff, president and chief government of Majestic Limo & Coach in Des Moines, made changes for the rising demand. By the early 2000s, an period when the Hummer limo first appeared and celebration buses had been being tricked out with bench seats, TVs and minibars, stretch limos made up a few quarter of the autos in his fleet.
“Every year, you would see the limos get larger and larger,” Mr. Woodruff mentioned.
Chuck Cotton, who owns VIP Limo in Oklahoma and has been within the business greater than 30 years, mentioned his fleet peaked at 35 stretch limos, six celebration buses and 4 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans, which carry a few dozen folks.
Then the housing market collapsed in 2008, setting in movement the longest and sharpest financial downturn for the reason that Great Depression — and the start of the tip of the stretch limo.
Recession, Ride Shares and Regulations
The downturn prompted corporations to chop spending and shed staff. Demand for stretch limo rides cratered, as unemployment and gasoline costs soared.
“The market imploded,” Mr. Alexander, of the National Limousine Association, mentioned.
The nation was nonetheless within the throes of the recession when Uber was based in 2009. Its foremost competitor, Lyft, arrived in 2012, and collectively they shook up the taxi trade and in addition made chauffeured black vehicles extra accessible.
“When they first came on the scene, people — in particular, in our industry — really bristled,” Mr. Alexander mentioned of the ride-hailing companies.
“When a stretch pulls over, everybody turns around to see who’s getting in or getting out,” Mr. Rose mentioned. These days his purchasers favor the discretion of a black sedan or S.U.V.
The Limo Industry Today
While demand for stretch limos isn’t what it was within the Nineteen Eighties and even the early 2000s, the limo trade is flourishing. It simply seems to be totally different now.
In addition to the shift to sedans and S.U.V.s, the trade is embracing Sprinter vans and celebration buses. Barbara White, co-owner and chief monetary officer of VIP Transportation Group in Orlando, Fla., mentioned that her business bought two of its stretch limos in recent times, changing one with a Sprinter van. With a fleet that additionally contains buses, sedans and S.U.V.s, Ms. White’s firm gives greater than 1,000 rides a 12 months, principally for weddings, she mentioned.
Matthew Daus, a lawyer and a former commissioner and chairman of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, mentioned that buses and vans gave the impression to be the way forward for the limo trade.
“They’re going to be fancier on the inside, but they’re going to probably stay nice and discreet on the outside,” Mr. Daus mentioned. “The limousine industry is very resilient. They bounced back from the pandemic, and they are muscling into the motor coach and the charter industry.”
But the times of the stretch look like practically over.
Mr. Rose mentioned his firm in Queens used to have 4 stretch limos in a fleet of about 30 autos. In the Attitude New York storage at the moment, there are sedans and S.U.V.s, together with Lexuses and Cadillac Escalades, however there isn’t a single stretch limo. He bought his final one eight years in the past.
“And for the two years prior to that,” he mentioned, “it was pretty much a paperweight.”
Source: www.nytimes.com