Rolling road as a business

[Mayboy]

Hi all - one of my (many) business ideas is to start up a rolling road and run it as a business in the south east. Thoughts that strike me immediately about this are:

Location is key
Quality of equipment
Large Capital outlay
Lease or purchase of property - warehouse conversion? Garage unit?
Marketing
Technical skills required
Staffing
How sustainable a business this might be (if cars with real engines fail to exist in the future and the world becomes a boring place)

Has anybody carried out any research on this, or indeed has anyone set up a company like this?

Fairly vague i know, but any thoughts/guidance appreciated.

[trackcar]

It's certainly possible .. Vixpy1 (charlie) does exactly this at surrey rolling road. Your only problem will be trying to establish yourself in the market when SRR are the leaders at this already and probably service the majority of the south east already as a totally independant rolling road facility.

[Silent1]

Yeah, SRR do have the south east tied up, Charlie is well respected and when another tuner closed they recommended him because he's made a name by being honest and hard grafting.

[Boosted LS1]

Bump him off then set up business in his workshop, sorted.

[FUBAR]

Silent1 said:

Yeah, SRR do have the south east tied up, Charlie is well respected and when another tuner closed they recommended him because he's made a name by being honest and hard grafting.

But he is a knobber

[JustinP1]

Mayboy said:

Hi all - one of my (many) business ideas is to start up a rolling road and run it as a business in the south east. Thoughts that strike me immediately about this are:

Location is key
Quality of equipment
Large Capital outlay
Lease or purchase of property - warehouse conversion? Garage unit?
Marketing
Technical skills required
Staffing
How sustainable a business this might be (if cars with real engines fail to exist in the future and the world becomes a boring place)

Has anybody carried out any research on this, or indeed has anyone set up a company like this?

Fairly vague i know, but any thoughts/guidance appreciated.

Even if the market in an area is already covered by someone else, this should not be the end of the plan, although of course it does make things less easy than if there were no competitors for example!

It all comes down to marketing - not 'price' as such, but the overall service you offer and your target market. Maybe the rolling road would be very viable if you would also be selling/fitting performance mods?

Rather than saying that the market in the area is X,XXX rolling road sessions in the area, you can target a market in such a way which has not been done before to create a whole new market for yourself. You can create your own niche(s) and loyal customer base.

Lets say for example to get to your road it was a particularly nice country run from London... A trip to you might be a good weekend day out for some car nuts!

What about if you did a free rolling road session for all lets say Ferrari owners - free publicity, people through the doors and a good time to sell the benefits of a new exhaust for example?

[touching cloth]

FUBAR said:

Silent1 said:

Yeah, SRR do have the south east tied up, Charlie is well respected and when another tuner closed they recommended him because he's made a name by being honest and hard grafting.

But he is a knobber

Very true, your niche and USP is right there... don't be a knobber like Charlie and I reckon you could be onto a winner, all the pro's and non of the cons of SRR

[TDIPLC]

As an "Insider* I would sugest caution. There doesn't seem to be enough work around to support all of the rolling road roads already in existance, and those that are successful have very clear differentiations based around exceptional technical staff and capabilities.

The economic down turn has started to bite the industry with a few firms closing down already this year so if you do want to get involved it should be possible for a lower cost entry if you can find the Liquidators.

[rolymo]

Does this answer your question.
http://www.tony-morris-racing.com/contentsGB/histo...