Suzuki teams up with up-start car rental business
‘The Car Test’ a car rental start-up business has signed a deal with Suzuki Australia which will offer its vehicles to potential customers.
Customers can rent a new Suzuki for up to seven days at a cost, which is deducted from the final sale price of the vehicle if it is purchased. The ‘try before you buy’ scheme is the brainchild of Melbourne founder and CEO Christian Scheafer who also helped create airport car sharing business CarHood.
The Car Test (TCT) is officially seeking all expressions of interest from automotive manufacturers. “With 65 new models introduced in 2015,” Schaefer said, “this year is jam-packed with a record 116 new models.”
TCT puts paying customers in the driver’s seat of a new vehicle virtually identical to a rental agreement, from one to seven days. The fee taken to rent the vehicle is used to discount the price of the car, should they purchase exactly the same make and model, in the form of a Visa debit card valid for six months. Manufacturers receive 25% of the rental fee as well as a claimed guaranteed minimum of four leads per vehicle every month, and the use of ‘idle’ vehicles in dealership lots.
For consumers, TCT offers the chance to try makes and models potentially not considered before while allowing sufficient test drive time to ‘allow the car to sell itself’.
The company officially launches in Tullamarine, Melbourne in the near future.
