Getting Our Business Ready to Roll

Picking up were I left off. We headed to Georgia to pick up our first limo. Now keep in mind we knew nothing about limos and didn't know what to expect. So we pulled up to the gun shop that was selling the limo to us. Ya a guy that runs a gun shop and limo service. Only in the south... Josh actually turned out to be a great guy and soon to be a big help in the growth of our new biz. The limo was a 91 Lincoln 10 passenger that had been parked in a barn for months. It needed to be cleaned and would need some work but the price was right. We paid $5,500. For Betsy as she would become known as.

The ride home was cool. We got a lot of looks and thumbs up. We knew this was gonna be fun. My wife hit the ground running with all the necessary paperwork to get our biz legal and rolling. My first order was to take this 28 foot car to my work and see what it needed. After doing all necessary repairs and many long nights we got Betsy looking awesome. Here is what she looked like when we were done.

Not bad for an old girl !!!

As of August 1st 2006 we had a cool Limo, Elegant Limousines of Palm Coast was now Incorporated and we had all permits and insurance to operate. But we had no customers !! First thing we needed was a website. We didn't know anything about websites or the Internet for that. Luckily my wife had a friend who's husband did websites and needed some car repairs done. Sooo we made a trade. I fixed his Toyota and we got a nice new website. But still no customers. ......

Read about our first year in operation and how we made it threw this tough economy. New posts will be up often. Thank you for your interest in Our story.

How it all Started

Ive decided to take some time and get all my thoughts and experiences down on paper. So this blog will be the beginning of many more to come. Back in 2005 I was living in New Bed ford Mass with my now wife of 4 yrs. We were living a great new life together. She was working full time as a nurse's aid and I was working in Abington as a mechanic for Abington Mobil, soon to be ACS. We lived a nice simple life. Had fiends and family to spend time with and life was simple. But we felt like we needed more. Since we both hated the cold winter weather and wanted to do something different with our new life together we started planning a move to Florida. Palm Coast, just north of Daytona Beach. We knew we would be sacrificing a lot to make this move, but figured it was worth it. This was a chance to start a new life together and plan for the future.
So we loaded up the truck and headed south. We did have some plans set in motion so we weren't coming down on a whim. I had found a job at the local Dodge Dealership and Marlo had many promising jobs to start as soon as we were settled. On our lst trip to Palm Coast before the big move we purchased our first home together and I proposed to Marlo in the front lawn of our new home.
We were so excited. All our friends had parties for us when we left and begged us to stay. But we knew this would be for the best. Hey you cant stay in the same place forever.


Once we got settled and started our new life it was time to start planning our wedding. Marlo jumped into this headfirst. She really wanted a simple wedding and now looking back I wish I had listened to her. I wanted to have a nice beautiful wedding in our backyard at our new home with friends and family. Sounds nice ha.. Not the dream I had pictured. We had a large guest list that only about half of them could make the trip for our big day. But the people who really care about us came.


Our wedding was only a few short weeks away and now we got to thinking about the bachelor and bachlorette parties. We were going to need a limo for a killer night out in Daytona. So like anyone would do we started price shopping for a limousine for our night out. Now keep in mind this was back in 2006 before the market fell. I was interested in the response we got from most limo companies in Daytona Beach. It seemed the going rates were anywhere from $80 to $100 an hr with like a 6 hour minimum.

Well this got the wheels in my head turning...  I wanted to know what a limo cost to buy and run. So I started looking on ebay and online. I was pleasantly surpriced that they werent 100% out of our reach for a cheap starter limo. We found a nice Lincoln 10 passenger for sale in Georgea. It was the right price and not too far way. So we hit the local Citibank to inquire about a small loan to get started. We decided to go for it. Now neither of us had no experiance will running a business or even think about how to drive a 28 foot car. But we figured what the hell, lets try and see what happens. The loan we got was so small that even if the biz didnt work out no big loss in our minds.