How to Book a Limousine for Your Event

LeeAnn Shattuck (00:01)
Hey everyone, welcome back to The Straight Shift. I had a client call me last week and ask if I knew of any really good limousine companies because they wanted to book something for New Year’s Eve. And it was a really interesting question. I realized while I know a lot of really great companies simply because I do a lot of business networking, I don’t actually know jack about limousines. I literally thought back to my whole life and I have never once

actively booked a limousine. I’ve ridden limousines, mind you, but mostly as airport transportation, mostly by accident. I’ve booked a town car and they didn’t have any more, so they just picked me up in a limo and I thought, woo, aren’t I special? But I’ve never actually booked one, been married twice, never booked a limo for a wedding, didn’t even have one for prom back in high school a million years ago.

So I realized this was a serious gap in my knowledge base, even though I don’t buy limousines and it’s not something that I really need to know, it’s still a car and it’s a car thing that I didn’t know a lot about. So when I don’t know something, I dive deep down the rabbit hole of research and I consult with other experts in the industry. So today I thought since we’re heading into new years and people are also starting to plan events for the spring, weddings, proms, birthday parties, whatever,

this might be a great time to talk all about limos. So I tapped my buddy, John Gibson of Bayside Limousines up in Washington, D.C. And so we’re going to talk limos today on The Straight Shift. Hey, John, so welcome to The Straight Shift. Thank you so much for being here to educate both me and the audience all about limousines.

Jonce Gibson (01:46)
Well, thanks for having me on. It’s been a long time that we’ve been a part of this industry. a lot has changed, a lot has been different. Background on us, we’ve been doing it 30 years.

LeeAnn Shattuck (01:58)
I know you have a background. You’ve loved cars your whole life. Like I have, we’re both total car nerds. And I know that we share some background in racing. But how did you specifically get into the limo business 30 years ago?

Jonce Gibson (02:12)
So actually, I was, like you said, car nerd, loved cars, raced them when I was a kid, both on and off the track and so on and so forth. So in order to support my habit, I had to work at a gas station, right? So…

I wanted to make sure I got parts at the right cost and I had to learn how to work on them. Later on I bought that gas station when I was in my early 20s. And the guy that I bought it from had a couple limos and it just got the bug. And we said, well, it can’t be that hard.

LeeAnn Shattuck (02:43)
Famous last words, right?

Jonce Gibson (02:45)
So we actually, he took his limos and went away. So we actually bought a company that was already existing that was somewhat floundering. And we were fortunate to find that and have a little bit of kind of out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak.

And, you know, within a couple years, we sort of got a handle on it. And really our biggest break was about two years in. We had a general manager at the time and one of the local concert venues, he said, hey man, why don’t we call them and see if they need a limo company? I’m like, there’s no way, man. They’ve got limo company. Well, we struck gold. We hit them right at the time. They had just fired their 20 year company local concert venue. And they said, look,

we’re gonna give your information to some of our bands that are coming in this summer. So the first band and that gave us an opportunity that gave us a crack I get a get a call from a guy named Tony Smith Tony says well look man. We need you guys for for this venue and maybe four or five other ones. Do you have any problem with driving Metallica around? I’m like

LeeAnn Shattuck (03:55)
I love Metallica. an 80s heavy metal nerd. You know how old I am, know, when I talk about, you know, the music from my high school years. That is so cool.

Jonce Gibson (04:05)
It was like, you know, a bunch of idiots out of the back of a gas station, you know, all of a sudden we’re driving the biggest band in the world. I mean, we had police escorts and we, you know, and it was just, it was kind of surreal, right?

LeeAnn Shattuck (04:19)
That’s really, really cool. you know, Just a good business lesson here for you entrepreneurs out there. You just never know what will lead to an incredible opportunity. So that’s awesome. I’d like to get a little nerdy before we kind of get into a little more of the limo experience because, know, car nerd here.

I want to talk about how limos are made because of course when I started going down this rabbit hole I thought, I wonder how they actually make these things. And the car companies themselves, I understand, don’t actually make the limos. Although I think Mercedes and some of the like Rolls Royce may make their own, but for the most part they just make the normal car and then these third party conversion companies buy them, whack them in half, so to speak,

and then do that conversion very much like with mobility vehicles. So what types of vehicles, you we think of the Cadillacs and the Lincolns, but I there’s SUVs. Like what all can be limo-ified? We’re going to invent a new word today, limo-ified.

Jonce Gibson (05:19)
For the most part, you’re absolutely right. They take a vehicle and they basically cut it straight in half and they stretch it out, you know, different lengths. know, in our industry, you’ll hear terms like 60, 120, 180, 220, 240. What that means is that’s how long they’re adding to that vehicle. So 120 is 10 feet in the middle. So you’re taking that very same vehicle, adding 10 feet to it. So…

You know, as I said, in the past three decades, everything sort of changes. again, there was a time when we first started where, you know, it was a race to get the longest stretch imaginable.

Right? So that was who won, right? Who had the craziest, most outlandish. And we played that game for a while too. And then it kind of evolved into the stretch SUVs. Same thing. Okay. Well, I need this thing, this monster thing, but that’s not enough. I need crazy doors that fly up. I need lights outside. cause part of that market is not just the experience of riding in it. It’s,

they want to see the reactions of the people that are watching them get out of this thing.

but.

LeeAnn Shattuck (06:27)
That sounds really expensive because when you stretch a vehicle, you’re not actually stretching it. They’re adding however many feet of metal, you’ve got a rocker panels, you’ve got to the floor pans. I learned a lot of this when I was doing the TV show Rust Rescue, when we were just restoring classic cars, we didn’t stretch any of them, but everything was rusted out. And when you add all that feet, you’re not just adding metal.

You have to extend the exhaust system. You have to extend the brake lines, fuel lines, all the wiring harnesses, adding more air conditioning, adding more heating. There’s just adding extra batteries. So I would imagine that gets super expensive. Like seriously, what’s the price range for a new limousine these days?

Jonce Gibson (07:10)
Well, these days it’s very expensive. Ever since COVID, everything has gone through the roof. Back in the olden days, we could be sub 200,000 for certain vehicles.

you know, and that was the crazy ones and, the stuff with, mean, we had stuff with red paint, black and silver and Lambo doors and, you know, and all this stuff. But, you know, here’s the thing, the, the crazier it is, the more breaks. So the more maintenance you have on it. So all those crazy doors, they, they’re, they break. So, but to answer your question, mean, equipment has doubled since COVID.

LeeAnn Shattuck (07:36)
Yes.

They break.

Jonce Gibson (07:47)
So stuff we used to buy for 100 grand is now approaching 200 grand.

LeeAnn Shattuck (07:51)
Wow.

Jonce Gibson (07:52)
I mean you’re still you know sprinters are you know 180 200 grand stretch limo right now is probably in the 145 150 range still because you to remember the base units now are are are higher as well I mean you’re

LeeAnn Shattuck (08:08)
Right. I mean, I do buy Sprinter vans on all the basic vehicles and actually last week’s podcast was talking about what happened to all the cheap cars and the fact that since 2019, car prices have risen 30 % outpacing inflation. And that’s true of the luxury vehicles and the commercial vehicles. So sure it’s, and then all the parts that you guys need to then limoify them have also gone up. So I’m not surprised to hear that you’re pushing

200, $300,000 for these vehicles.

Jonce Gibson (08:39)
So it brings me back to the point of why don’t we have a lot of the crazy vehicles anymore? Because at least in our market, it doesn’t support it. So in other words, we had to go to more, at least in the last five years, to more versatile units that can maybe…

LeeAnn Shattuck (08:48)
Hmm.

Jonce Gibson (08:56)
go on a party, also go on a corporate event. know, there’s some of those wild and crazy units, you you can’t survive off three or four rentals a month on that type of number. So that’s why, at least from our perspective up here in the DMV, we don’t have as many of those options anymore because that unit has to do double duty. if it’s a party style, then we have to be able to turn the lights off so that, you know, the corporate people can utilize it as well.

LeeAnn Shattuck (09:20)
Is it true that you have a 1957 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud in your fleet? if you’ve never seen that, and I’ll put the link to the Bayside Limo website in the description of the podcast. Go out there and look at the vehicles in his fleet.

Jonce Gibson (09:27)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

LeeAnn Shattuck (09:40)
you have to see the Rolls-Royce. is one of the most beautiful vehicles ever made. And it’s great because you get a little bit of a history about it. So it’s not just if you want to stretch limo or you want a party bus, but if you want something vintage to make you feel like the queen of England for your wedding, man, see, yeah, see, that’s what I would want. It’s just so beautiful. of events do you guys do? You were talking about corporate events versus parties, but what do people actually rent limos for?

you know, other than going to the airport.

Jonce Gibson (10:10)
Yeah, mean, so again, most of the services have evolved where the actual stretch limo component is a smaller portion of vehicles now. So like, for example, for weddings, we’re seeing more of what we call necessary transportation. Yes, and.

people that are, you they want to keep people off the road from, from drinking and driving and what have you. So what’s your, what you’re finding now is spending more on as a, as I mentioned, some of your basic kind of vehicles. and, the Sprinters fit that category too. So again, coming back out of COVID, we used to see, I mean, we have vehicles that’ll sit, you know, 30, 40 people.

But what we’re seeing now is that those groups are diminishing, right? So, I mean, when’s the last time you had 30 or 40 people together? Not very often. We’re seeing more of the 10 to 12 range people. So again, we’ve had to evolve from these big monstrosities back down to smaller groups. But to answer your question about events, I mean, right now we’re in the middle of the winter. So we’re doing the winter light tours. So, you know, everybody gets…

Yeah, it’s really cool. You go around and you see all the lights and get some eggnog or whatever else you want to in your…

LeeAnn Shattuck (11:24)
That’s really cool. We do that in our neighborhood in my Mini Cooper, but I can’t drink while I’m doing that. It’d be much nicer if somebody else were driving so I could have a beverage and look at the lights.

Jonce Gibson (11:34)
so yeah a lot of folks are doing those kind of things. Just to celebrate, just to be with family and do something different and create a memory and that’s that’s kind of what our business is, is creating that experience you know you and I talked about that earlier is you know it’s great to have a fancy car but you know it’s really about you know what you know am I going to be able to remember this for the next you know decade or two.

LeeAnn Shattuck (11:57)
Well, that leads to a good point. When someone is looking to book one of these vehicles for some sort of event, whether it is for a wedding and they need to transport guests around, or if they’ve got family coming in for the holidays and they want to do something fun where everybody can be together and have a shared experience, maybe have some adult beverages, also saying safe, how do you choose the right limo service?

Jonce Gibson (12:20)
Yeah, I mean, you have to do your due diligence, of course, you know, so there’s a number of factors that are happening in our industry right now. one, would encourage everybody to deal with a real company. And what I mean by a real company is somebody that actually owns their equipment. right now in our industry, there’s a plethora of what we call brokers. A broker doesn’t really own any equipment. What they’re doing is,

Brokering services it works great with you know car rentals and airlines It doesn’t necessarily lend itself very well to a service type business. So number one make sure you’re dealing with a real company. How do you know you’re dealing with a real company? the best thing you can do is say hey, where’s your shop? Can I come look? If they’re not gonna let you look at their equipment They’re probably not a real company or if they are a real company. They don’t want you to see the car until it’s too late

So just by asking that one question, hey, can I come look? whether you plan on doing it or not, just pay attention to that response. If they’re reluctant to let you see, then stay away from them.

LeeAnn Shattuck (13:16)
because it’s just asking them, do you own your own vehicles? Are they going to be honest with you or not? But if you ask, come look at them? That’s a little more of a pointed question.

Jonce Gibson (13:26)
I mean pay attention to how you get treated on the phone I mean because all of it is part of the service right the before during and after you know Are they responsive to your emails are they responsive to your your calls? Do they you know are they willing to help or do they have an attitude?

LeeAnn Shattuck (13:41)
when you’re ordering a limo, you do want to have that higher level of experience. You’re paying a lot more.

Jonce Gibson (13:47)
Right. And so a lot of people, you know, the only thing that they, that they judge us on is price, right? So not every vehicle’s

the same. There’s a lot of different coach builders, a lot of different levels of these things being nice or not nice or, you know, and you can even ask somebody, hey, what’s what age is it? It might be one year old and still might be beat up. So all of the factors that go in, are they responsive? Are they treating you nice on the phone? Well, if they’re not treating you nice on the phone, guess what? You’re probably not going to get treated nice on the day of the event.

LeeAnn Shattuck (14:16)
and they’re likely not to communicate well with you. I can think of nothing more stressful than a bride planning her wedding and not feeling confident that the limo is gonna show up and that her family and her guests are gonna get to where they need to go or she’s gonna get to where she needs to go. It’s the most stressful day of most people’s lives. And just basic communication seems to be something that fails a lot of companies.

Jonce Gibson (14:43)
I don’t think it’s just in our industry. think it’s in a lot of industries, you you know, the Amazon effect where people want to point and click. we try to look for pain points, you know, along the process.

somebody might’ve rented or booked us six months ago for their wedding, right? And yeah, maybe we had a conversation with them two weeks prior, but you know, that during that two weeks, all of a sudden that anxiety starts building. You know, are these people gonna show up? As you said, are they gonna be here? Even if we talk to them the week of by the wedding day, that anxiety is going way up. know, where are they at? Where are they at? And so, you know,

LeeAnn Shattuck (15:05)
Mm-hmm.

Jonce Gibson (15:18)
the lower we bring the anxiety, the higher the satisfaction comes up.

And look at reviews.

LeeAnn Shattuck (15:23)
your Google reviews. You can’t always trust Amazon reviews, but Google reviews of companies, Google doesn’t let you edit them, correct them, or even take them down. So if you get a bad Google review, it’s out there, I think, forever.

Jonce Gibson (15:38)
yeah and you know and then nobody’s perfect but if you make a mistake you own it you fix it you do whatever you can do you overcompensate you know and I mean and that’s what that’s what really everybody in every business should be doing

LeeAnn Shattuck (15:50)
Exactly, that is just good business. Now, what can people do when they are planning to rent one of these vehicles? They’re planning that experience. What do they need to know to help them plan so that they do get the most out of that experience?

Jonce Gibson (16:07)
Well, I think the first thing is to figure out how many people you have, right? Because, I mean, well, but we get the call all the time, know, hey, we might have 10 to 30 people. Well, that’s a big range, right? So the narrow range, right, right. know, so knowing that you’re going to have an attrition rate as well.

LeeAnn Shattuck (16:11)
Head count’s always good to know.

Those are different vehicles.

Jonce Gibson (16:27)
And then that’s the other good point too. Whatever size vehicle that you bought or that you that you rent if it’s a stretch limo or a sprinter one of those kind of units, understand that it’s gonna seat comfortably two or three people less. So for example a ten passenger limo that’s been been around for 30 years, seven or eight people for comfort. So, when they when they build a limo they list the average person that five foot five, 135 pounds

LeeAnn Shattuck (16:55)
They must be in cahoots with the airlines then.

Jonce Gibson (16:58)
All right. mean, that’s so so so number one, you want to make sure you have enough room and then figure out what do I look, do I really want all the bells and whistles? Do I want super crazy, wonderful or am I cool with just basic transportation? So, for example, if you’re going, let’s just say you’re going to a winery.

you know, most of your time for that is going to be spent outside of the vehicle. So instead of the, you know, super high end interior, there might be a more affordable solution for something that’s a little bit more basic, that’s still clean, still keeps you off the road, you know, and so on and so forth. So, so yeah, having an idea of what you want to do is important, but, but allow

folks that do this for a living and say, yeah, this works, no, this doesn’t work. If you don’t have a company that’s helping you with the planning, then that’s, you know, that’s part of it. We do this every day. So for us,

we can share with you, yeah, this is gonna work, or no, I think it’s a little aggressive, or, and again, we talk people out of some itineraries and go, what about this way, or what about that way? So, for example, when we do guest transportation for weddings, we have a lot of brides and grooms that wanna run their transportation right up to that ceremony time. So, the problem is if there’s any chink in the armor, anything that happens,

we’re running over that ceremony time and now you’ve got stress and chaos. so, you know, so we go through a lot, least, I mean, us and there are other companies that do the same thing, go through a lot of homework to make sure that we’re, giving the right advice so that your event is successful. It’s great to have a wonderful vehicle, wonderful person, but if your plan doesn’t work, all that stuff kind of goes out the window.

LeeAnn Shattuck (18:22)
Right.

Right, and you guys, because you do it all the time, you see all the things that can go wrong. So you might as well learn from the experts and take that advice because that again, that helps lower your stress level and you’ll end up with a much, much better experience.

Jonce Gibson (18:58)
So yeah, I don’t want to miss your plane. You don’t want to your concert. You don’t want miss your wedding. we’re a turtle. So it takes us longer.

LeeAnn Shattuck (19:05)
because they don’t modify the engine of the vehicle. So now that this poor engine has to pull so much more weight, modify the suspension, make it comfortable. But, you guys can’t just go everywhere, especially if you’re in a stretch. I mean, you want to talk about something that has a terrible turning radius. You got to plan your routes a little bit better. You know, you’re not going to go in places that my MINI’s going. So.

Jonce Gibson (19:21)
Yeah.

I mean that’s you know, and I’m sure in your town just like ours I mean there’s places that we can’t we can’t get into You know Annapolis is famous for that. So it’s you know tight quarters and and we want to be safe I mean, that’s the other side of that coin is the crazier the car, you know, the more modified it is I mean You know, they’re not the one downside is they’re not really modifying the brake system So, you know, you want to make sure that that’s something that’s

you’re taking the concerns. And that’s why, again, a lot of people are migrating away from some of the more traditional stretches into some of the Mercedes Sprinters and things like that, because it’s a unit that’s made for that type of application. Where we were taking something that wasn’t made to do what it was doing and doing it anyway.

LeeAnn Shattuck (20:06)
that’s kind of what humans do, right? I mean, you we did the same thing in the race car world. But I would hope that they would at least upgrade the brakes, you know, just a tiny bit. But, know, I understand that in 2021, when they passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, part of that giant bill was to require limousine companies, that modify them and actually limo-ify these vehicles to meet

least some of the safety regulations that regular vehicles need to make because, know, like we said, when you stretch something another, you know, 10, 12, 15 feet, you’re adding all that metal. What you’re losing is a lot of the structural integrity. know, all of sudden all of your structural pillars are in the very front and the very back, but there’s nothing in the middle. want is for a limo to get T-boned.

Now that that is in place and these vehicles do have to be built to some better safety standards, which you know, protects your customers, it protects the people riding in it, protects your drivers, and it protects your company from a liability standpoint.

Jonce Gibson (21:09)
Yeah, of course. I think the biggest safety component that that companies have is their chauffeurs. I mean.

LeeAnn Shattuck (21:16)
It’s always the nut behind the wheel is the most important safety feature in any vehicle. I preach that all the time.

Jonce Gibson (21:23)
I mean, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s something that, you know, again, as I mentioned, we’re the turtle, right? So we take that approach. So when somebody gets in the bag and they go, hey, man, can you hurry up? Absolutely. And we still drive the speed limit. so that’s number one. Number two, I will say that regulations existed before the twenty twenty one. I mean, amount of regulations that we have to abide by is substantial.

LeeAnn Shattuck (21:40)
good.

Jonce Gibson (21:45)
both from a vehicle standpoint and from a licensing standpoint, not only for the company, but for the drivers now, at least that’s in the DMV. I don’t know what it’s like in some of the other areas. but once you get into more of the CDO, now you’ve got. Federal requirements that are, or I mean, they have a book that’s about this thick that I’ve read three times and I still don’t really understand it. having a good coach builder.

Having great maintenance programs is important. Making sure that you’re out there looking. No matter what you do, mean, you’re in the car business. You could check it out right now and then you get on the road and something happens. But as far as regulations, there’s a tremendous amount of regulations. And one of the biggest things that’s a hot button now, and rightfully so, is the hours of service. So back in

LeeAnn Shattuck (22:20)
And something happens.

Just like for truckers.

Jonce Gibson (22:35)
Well, it’s the same for us. So we’re a commercial vehicle. So yeah, back in the old and Wild West days, you might have a car go out for 15 hours or so, but that’s just, you can do that now, but you have to have more than one chauffeur. So it’s very important to make sure that a lot of these regulations,

I think it’s a good thing to keep people safe. think regulations are good. Overregulation is not. But, you know, meanwhile, there are companies out there that aren’t regulated at all.

LeeAnn Shattuck (23:10)
Right, yeah, your Uber’s in your Lyft’s. And that’s one reason that when I travel to the airport, I generally will book a car service simply because I feel safer both with, I know that person’s driving record, what they have to maintain in order to maintain their license. Some random person shows up my house in their personal vehicle. I don’t know how well that car has been maintained. I have no idea what their driving record looks like.

I just personally feel, and especially as a woman, I feel a little bit safer getting into a vehicle where at least, no, there are some regulations and protections around that versus it just being something of a free for all.

Jonce Gibson (23:53)
Well, yeah, that’s something that I don’t think it’s going to go away. Uber and Lift is not going to go away. customers love it. It’s, it’s, it’s affordable. It’s easy. It’s convenient, but they have sidestepped and circumvented every role in regulation to the transportation industry.

So I don’t want to be too negative on that because it does serve a purpose, but it would be nice to have a level playing field with those kind of things. We used to have town cars and SUVs. I mean, we still have a few of them, but not like we used to. people hit three buttons and the car shows up. But yeah, the fact that you don’t know who’s coming in to get you. You don’t know if they’re…

If they’re vetted, I mean, all of our folks and I’m sure around the country have to be FBI background. So you’re not going to, you that’s important. You know, we’re our insurance company twice a year pulls MVR. So if our folks have suspensions or if they have points, they they’re disqualified. That doesn’t exist in that in that realm. And I know it’s cheap. I know it’s easy. but yeah, you’re taking a big risk. You’re taking a big risk.

LeeAnn Shattuck (24:48)
Yeah. And again, there’s a place for everything. And I certainly have, you know, taken my share of Ubers when I just need to go here and need to go there. But when it’s something important and I have luggage, you my mother is 79 and she has a lot of mobility issues. And so when we travel together, you know, it needs to be a vehicle I know she can get in and out of. So I’m going to be able to talk to someone to say, OK, I need to know exactly what vehicle is going to show up to know she can get in and out of it.

because she cannot get into SUVs. So, you I want that specificity that I know that, you know, we’re all going to fit in the vehicle. She can get into it. It’s going to fit all of our luggage because we can’t go anywhere without taking a ton of junk with us. And I know that the driver has had to pass tests, that they’re being monitored and the vehicle is being maintained. And it’s just, it’s just overall safer for when it matters. If I just need to go from this place to that place, you know, for a few minutes, I’m not going to worry about it, but.

You know, I’m not worried about the customer experience in that standpoint, but you know, we do a lot of cruising in our family and I know you’ve done some cruises too, because I was looking on your social media and I know you guys went to Alaska, which is just one of our favorite things. And, know, you have to a lot of luggage on a cruise. So I always just, everybody’s like, you know, just take an Uber, you know, just take a taxi. I’m like, no, no, I will spend a little extra money to call a service to have a little bit nicer car, but also one that I just.

I feel comfortable with. I know what’s going to happen. I’m a planner. I want everything to go exactly the way I had it planned. I know it never does as we learned in the racing world, but I got to control everything I can. And I can’t do that with, you know, a random Uber or anything like that, or even a taxi for that matter.

Jonce Gibson (26:28)
No, but like you said, they serve the purpose. mean, you when you walk out of the building and you want to go someplace quick and you know, don’t mean because it, and again, I did a presentation years ago when Uber first came out and you know, everyone’s gone, man, we got to fight this. I said, look, you know, that, that games are that ship sale. We’ve already lost because number one, we don’t have any, it’s, it’s a better mouse trap. just.

I mean, it’s easier. Look, you gotta, you gotta call me or my team or somebody else’s team, find out if they’re open, are they available? How much it costs? With three buttons, you gotta rock. So that’s not going to go away. It’s a better mousetrap and customers love it. So, again, the only thing that I would encourage people to do is just to go, Hey, look, we, need to hold them to some sort of standards so that we know that when we’re getting in an Uber, that the person that’s behind the wheel is,

is who they say they are and they’re qualified and they don’t have some of the baggage that you wouldn’t want to ride with somebody with. And the same thing with the vehicles. To my understanding, and I don’t know this because I don’t take the Ubers, but they don’t have any of the inspections that we have to go through every six months. It could be wrong.

LeeAnn Shattuck (27:25)
Exactly.

Right, it’s just whatever the state inspection is in that state. I live in South Carolina and we didn’t even have state inspections. You can put any old piece of crap on the road as long as it has headlights and turn signals.

One other thing that I want to ask is, is there like certain etiquette that passengers need to follow for being in one of these vehicles? Because I see a lot of, you know, when you get bachelorette parties and stuff like that, things can get a little bit crazy. But, know, for me,

A limo is a luxury thing and I immediately am on my best behavior when I get into one, but maybe that’s just me. is there any etiquette that we need to be aware

Jonce Gibson (28:14)
usually when we pick everybody up, everybody’s, you know, sober and everybody’s kissing the wife and the husband’s goodbye. And then four hours later, all the monsters come out. So, and yeah, I mean, it’s, and some groups are better than, I mean, what we’ve learned is if you have a six passenger limit, you’ve got one donkey we’ll call.

You have a 10 pass or you got two. You got a 14, you got three. And then if you get a 20, you’ve got four donkeys.

LeeAnn Shattuck (28:35)
You

So there’s actually a mathematical formula for the number of jackasses that are going to be in your cars.

Jonce Gibson (28:44)
Absolutely.

Right. Well, ideally, you know, we train our folks to go, go, always go back to the person renting the car, right? Cause yeah, everybody sometimes get a little tuned up and they all start shouting, I want to go here. want to go there. I want to go. Yeah. Where do you want to go? You know, and that way we.

LeeAnn Shattuck (29:03)
Right. The person paying the bill. And keep in mind, if you’re the person paying the bill, you’re the person paying the bill. If one of your crazy guests does something damaging, shall we say.

Jonce Gibson (29:16)
Yeah, we’ve had it. we’ve had some, even A-list celebrities tearing up stuff and I mean, we could write books and probably, but as far as etiquette, I mean, we want you to have a great time within reason.

you know, keep your hands in the, mean, I don’t build anything or we don’t, most people in our industry don’t build any moon roofs anymore. People are like, my God, you don’t have a moon roof? No, no, because.

LeeAnn Shattuck (29:36)
Yeah, no, no moon roof surfing anymore. Dang.

Jonce Gibson (29:40)
No, they stand out of them. They break or they leak. So no more moon roofs. So, and we used to have to train guys and gals. I’m like, look, if you’re in the city and all of sudden the people that are on, you know, the sidewalks are waving, but they’re, and they’re looking up above you. So it is in the back out of the moon roof. And they’re like, what? And so I’m like the close the moon roof. And so

Anyway, and I never did ever figure out the difference between a sun roof and a moon roof. Maybe you know, I don’t know.

LeeAnn Shattuck (30:09)
the way I define it, and I think this is how the industry defines it, is a sunroof was where you have the, it’s the metal roof. So when you close it, you have just metal painted roof. So you can’t see through it. A moon roof is it’s glass when it’s closed, you can see through it. So you can see the moon at night and then you can open it get the sun coming in during the day. So most things now are true moon roofs. Yeah, see?

Jonce Gibson (30:33)
Gotcha. But now

as I mentioned earlier, with a lot of what we do, there’s a lot of anxiety because we’re only part of the event. Right. I mean, we’re we’re so so what they’re doing is super important. Well, as I said, whether you go to a concert, whether you get married, you know, everything is pressure packed. So I would

always recommend to make your itinerary longer than not just because it’s more money, but because it takes the pressure off. the more that you take the pressure off yourself, the better experience you can have. mean, if you’ve got a concert that’s an hour away at seven o’clock and you want to leave at six on a Friday in the rain, well, chances are you might miss part of the concert.

So yeah, the etiquette is,

you know, keep your hands and feet inside the inside the train. You know, don’t don’t don’t people on the you know, we’ve had this happen. I don’t know how many times somebody’s in the city and they’re yelling profanities. It’s some, you know, a group that’s on the sidewalk, right? Well, what they don’t understand is that there’s a traffic light than just a block away and that group catches up. And so we’ve had it, you know, where that group

LeeAnn Shattuck (31:20)
Rollercoaster rules.

Right!

Jonce Gibson (31:44)
tears up the limo from the outside because of something that happened on the inside where people are, know, mouthing off or what have you. as far as I don’t know about other companies around the country, we don’t allow smoking. We don’t want anything to do with illegal drugs. We don’t want anything to do with things that are more, you know, with just not our, not our game.

LeeAnn Shattuck (32:02)
You can have your beverages back there, but that’s it.

Jonce Gibson (32:05)
Yeah, as long as you’re 21. If you’re not 21, don’t call us.

LeeAnn Shattuck (32:11)
before we wrap up, have one last question. Who is, and if you’re allowed to even say, but who is the most famous person you have ever had in one of your vehicles?

Jonce Gibson (32:21)
I like, maybe George Clooney.

LeeAnn Shattuck (32:23)
Wow! yeah, I wouldn’t mind riding in a limo with George Clooney and talking to him

Jonce Gibson (32:26)
So, so he was doing a movie called Siriana here and we used to get a lot of movies shot in, in the Maryland area, back in the, in the nineties. So I, and I will say pleasantly great guy. Wonderful. gets in the car, wants to know everything about all the chauffeurs. Wasn’t me, me, me was telling us about,

LeeAnn Shattuck (32:32)
Mm-hmm.

Jonce Gibson (32:50)
you know, his Italian villa that he was remodeling himself with his own hands. And just a really engaging, you know, everything you would think that he would be, he really was.

LeeAnn Shattuck (32:56)
Cool.

awesome. I love it. Well, thank you so much for being here, Jonce. I have learned a lot and everyone, thank you for joining us here on The Straight Shift. There will not be a show next week because of the holidays. So I want everyone to have a Merry Yule, a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Boxing Day, Joyous Kwanzaa, and a Happy New Year.

We will be back on New Year’s Day with my predictions for what the heck is going to happen in the automotive industry in 2025 and will it be a good time to buy cars.

Happy holidays and be safe. I’m out of here.