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Beverly hills car club
Inside, row after row of Porsches, Jaguars, Ferraris, Mercedes-Benzes and other vehicles sit under fluorescent lights in rooms decorated with automobilia. Some look like they belong in a museum, others in a scrapyard.
The force behind the company is Alex Manos, 40, a telegenic entrepreneur of the internet age. With a web-focused operation optimized for easy browsing and a social media presence that promotes the dream of classic car ownership, his dealership has differentiated itself in an industry that at times can be overly tradition-bound. The marketplace for classic cars can seem opaque — and perilous — for a novice.
Dealers have limited inventories and charge premium prices for pristine rides. Auction houses tack on big fees and require mastery of complex bidding processes.
Private-party sellers could be located across the country, or on another continent. It can take years of scouring the classified pages of car magazines, message boards and Craigslist to find rare models.
Beverly Hills Car Club appears to take away the friction of the experience. Its website documents every car in its inventory with studio photography and promotes many with well-honed social media posts. Unlike most classics dealers, Beverly Hills Car Club offers hundreds of vehicles, many of them uncommon or unusual, at just about every price point — and in all manner of condition. The presence of cars pocked with dents, blanketed in rust or missing key components has led one classic car consultant to compare the dealership to a thrift store.
This business model has made Beverly Hills Car Club stand out — for better or worse. Over the years, customers have alleged in lawsuits that Beverly Hills Car Club sold them vehicles that had undisclosed damage or defective parts or were misrepresented by the company. Buyers who spent tens of thousands of dollars wound up mired in years of litigation and never got to enjoy their dream cars. In one instance, the dealership sold a rare Porsche that allegedly included parts from a different vehicle.
Beverly Hills Car Club was also investigated by state regulators for having two stolen cars in its inventory; it got off with a written warning, records show. High gasoline prices and concerns about climate change and pollution are pushing some drivers to turn vintage cars into electric vehicles.
Many customers appreciate the convenience, among them photographer Tyler Shields, who purchased a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow to blow it up in the Mojave Desert in the name of art.
Later, Shields bought a Ferrari GTSi that he drives regularly. It all began with a Lincoln Continental. The experience came to mind a few years later when he and his mother, Versa Manos, were discussing starting a classic car dealership.
Manos and his mother launched Beverly Hills Car Club in What began as a homespun project now employs 45 people at a cavernous warehouse facility. During a tour of Beverly Hills Car Club, the breadth of offerings was on display. The Delahaye, meanwhile, is an exceedingly rare French vehicle that Beverly Hills Car Club says is the only one of its kind still in existence.
But the M would require a complete restoration — it has significant rust damage, the convertible top is tattered and the interior is filled with cardboard boxes holding several parts. Our customers find great joy in rebuilding and customizing their dream cars.
A gold pocket watch said to have been made for J. Morgan disappeared, prompting a hunt that plunged into the baroque world of high-end antiquities. The dealership inspects automobiles that come in, with a multi-step intake process that includes cleaning and detailing, photography in a studio, a point inspection, and ends with a test drive — if the vehicle is working.
But it will not sink in the time, labor and expense needed to turn an acquisition into a showpiece. Bill Kelley is one such expert, part of a growing field of gearheads who, for a price, inspect vehicles on behalf of prospective buyers.
He runs a consulting service for buying and selling vintage Porsches, and, over roughly a decade, he has inspected nearly 30 cars at Beverly Hills Car Club on behalf of clients. Though the dealership offers cars with straight bodywork, shiny chrome and immaculate interiors, its shabbiest vehicles — rides meant to be scavenged for parts because of issues such as collapsed roofs and ravaged engine bays — have become a running joke among some auto aficionados, including those who have taken to social media to poke fun at the company.
Troy Ladd, the founder of Hollywood Hot Rods, a high-end custom car shop in Burbank, has bought two cars from Beverly Hills Car Club since Did they even know about every little thing?
Some customers with less experience in classic cars, however, have run into issues that have prompted legal action. Jan Michael Kubr, a Silicon Valley engineering manager, dreamed of driving an Alfa Romeo GTV coupe along the famed Skyline Boulevard in the hills above San Jose. You think: There are so many cars, they know what they are doing. He sued Beverly Hills Car Club in L. Per state law, car dealers must conduct a safety inspection for any vehicle they sell.
A unique set of circumstances brought on by the pandemic has roiled the used car market, leading to an inventory shortage that has sent prices soaring. Kubr and the dealership settled the lawsuit in He declined to disclose terms of the confidential settlement, but noted the vehicle was returned to the dealer. By October, the Alfa was listed as sold. Kubr complained about were fixed to ensure that any future buyer would not experience any issues.
Attorney Bryan W. And Manos did not respond to a question asking him to explain what it means. Parlange, who had previously bought two cars from the dealership without incident, had the Ford shipped to France, where he resides. The Mustang then sparked litigation on both sides of the Atlantic.
The court ruled in favor of Parlange in A year later, Parlange filed a lawsuit in L. After years of legal skirmishing, the L. court ruled in favor of Parlange in , records show.
Douglas E. Hewlett Jr. After briefly living in Australia, Manos immigrated to the U. when he was 12 years old he said he became a U. citizen last year. Beverly Hills Car Club has sold a Rolls-Royce to Justin Bieber and dealt several rides previously owned by celebrities, among them the Ferraris of Miles Davis and John McEnroe, Manos said. Manos seems poised to become a bigger TV character: He and Aldjufrie announced their engagement in November via her Intagram account , a milestone that drew tabloid coverage.
Manos showed the women around the facility, and gave Richards the keys to a Jaguar XK-E for a quick cruise. In another episode, Manos delighted Richards when he spoke about having a child with Aldjufrie. Compared with its competitors, Beverly Hills Car Club has a robust online operation, but one of its marketing efforts crosses a line: It includes plagiarized language. And an August story by Manos on the Porsche A Speedster included language lifted from a story on Silodrome , a car culture website.
Watch L. Times Today at 7 p. on Spectrum News 1 on Channel 1 or live stream on the Spectrum News App. Palos Verdes Peninsula and Orange County viewers can watch on Cox Systems on channel In the classic car world, provenance is key.
Perhaps most of all, in the case of rare, high-dollar rides, they want to verify authenticity. That requires meticulous research. And an investigation of the dealership by a state agency revealed how it was roiled by a long-standing hazard of the classics business: the sale of ill-gotten automobiles.
Documents obtained via a public records request show that the dealership was investigated by the DMV in for having two cars in its inventory that had been stolen. According to the DMV records, the stolen cars were taken from Beverly Hills Car Club by authorities, and the company was issued a written warning. Manos said that when his dealership purchased the cars it received ownership paperwork and a bill of sale for each.
Experts said that verifying a car is not stolen ahead of acquiring it is a basic tenet of the auto business — though this can be tricky with classics, because it is harder to account for their lengthy history.
In Porsche collecting circles, the Porsche Targa S is something of an icon. Charles A. He sent the Porsche to Farland Classic Restoration , a high-end shop based in Englewood, Colo. According to an L.
County Superior Court lawsuit filed by Miller against Beverly Hills Car Club in , the vehicle was not a genuine Porsche Targa S. Manos acknowledged the vehicle had been altered, but insisted that it had originally been a genuine Targa S. To explain his reasoning, Manos provided The Times with an email that was written by a person who identified himself as having been involved in a prior sale of the Porsche. In the message, the individual explained that a previous owner had, many years earlier, modified the car because he wanted to transform it from a Targa into a coupe.
Citing a nondisclosure agreement, Fitz-Simon declined to comment. Manos has acknowledged personally experiencing the sort of trouble that Miller allegedly endured after buying a car from Beverly Hills Car Club. Not only that, it took a further six months to put it together. Daniel Miller is an enterprise business reporter for the Los Angeles Times, working on investigations, features and projects.
native and UCLA graduate, he joined the staff in All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store.
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