Social car movers

We have a car in NYC and one in Miami. But it is useless to have a car in Manhattan this time of the year and very useful to have 2 in Miami. So we decided to bring the Q7 to Miami and I had this crazy idea to ask somebody to do it over social media. I posted it on Twitter and Facebook, said that if anyone wanted to drive our car we would pay for gas and $250. This was intended for somebody who wanted to enjoy driving down the East Coast and get to know this part of America. I told them they could take up to a week although the trip itself according to Google Maps is 19 hours of driving.  Friends told me that I could get a crook or somebody who could destroy our car but I thought it highly unlikely.

And it totally worked!  Many people volunteered and I chose this computer programmer who inspired confidence in me over email and via his LinkedIn profile. It all went great and the car just made it to our garage in Miami.

It is not that we saved much money, there are professional services that do this work, ship your car on a train or truck. But I like the sharing economy. That’s what Fon is. For Randall who brought the car it was a great trip he said. He stopped along the way to visit friends and relatives. He loved the Q7. And for us it was so much easier than dealing with a company, filling out the paperwork and legal stuff that normally accompanies all these things. Pick up, drop off.

Is there a business here of moving cars instead of renting cars for those who want to drop a car far from where they rented it? For car rental companies it’s all about drop off charges. Maybe that’s the next, albeit smaller AirBnB, or ZipCar.

After writing this post I came across Spanish company Amovens, founded by Diego Hidalgo, what they do is not exactly shipping your cars through social means but car pooling.  Also Socialcar which is like a car rental company among individuals.