There was a hidden gem in yesterday’s announcement from Goodwood Kartways. The annual General Meeting would not be held at the local Community Centre, but rather, at RCLUB in Toronto.
You’d be forgiven for misreading the name as RCclub (as in remote-control car) rather than reading it phonetically as ‘Our Club’. This place is not child’s play. It’s somewhere between a car sharing platform (think CAR2GO) and a member’s only club with a fleet of high end rentals. So if you ever wanted to drive a Ferrari but didn’t have the coin for one … here’s a new option.
The foundation of RCLUB is the clubhouse itself, which is an old warehouse on the appropriately named Commercial Dr in Leaside. It isn’t pretty. Kind of halfway between a garage and a banquet hall without the carpets. The RCLUB website calls the clubhouse a “gathering place for petrol-heads” which translates to ‘gearhead‘ for any Canadians. Apparently, the clubhouse is open 24/7 and has a projection screen for watching the Japanese Grand Prix at 4:00 am.
But the clubhouse is also the storage facility for the club’s cars. Your $9,000 to $15,000 annual membership allows you to drive any and all of the vehicles in the fleet including a Ferrari F355 Spyder, Acura NSX, Audi RS4, Alfa Romeo 4C Spyder, Ford Raptor, BMW E30, a classic Ford Mustang and the new Toyota GR Supra.
Membership entitles club members to a specific number of ‘credits’ used for vehicle rental. The more popular the car, the more credits. Taking the Ferrari out will cost you three times as many credits on a Saturday as it would on a Monday. And you could take the Audi out ten times for the cost of one day in the Porsche 911 Turbo.
Membership is restricted to drivers over 29 years old, and a spotless driver’s abstract is a must. Members must also own their own vehicle, and cannot use RCLUB’s fleet as their ‘daily driver’ to circumvent car ownership and maintenance costs. But at least insurance is included!
For more details, go to https://rclub.co/ or come to the Goodwood Kartways annual General Meeting on March 1st, 2020
