How to start your own car club

Ever wonder about all these car clubs that are popping up here there and everywhere, designing pretty mediocre merchandise and selling at ridiculous profits? Well, you can do it too!

First, establish your brand: Choose a name. Make sure it’s super ‘sceney’ – you want to make sure all the scene kids come crying to you for sun strips! Extra brownie points for any names that refer to ‘da lows’.

Get those social media account handles on lock. Do it now before someone else finds out, does it for you, then comes back to you with whopping invoices. Focusing on Instagram, in particular, you might want to buy a shit load of followers and likes so it looks like you’re a popular car club. This will attract new followers no end and ultimately buyers! Don’t bother so much with Twitter; the fact is that the people you’re trying to target probably don’t have much to say…

Steal photos. Yes, steal them! Don’t worry, there’s no need to credit – no one will notice and by the time they do you’ll be so famous that it won’t matter. Ultimately, they’ll still buy your sh*t!

Post as often as you can, depending on the platform. Get an understanding of what the audience wants. Scene kids just love to talk about themselves and their cars; ask them regularly to post pics of parts of their cars or their whole car.

You’re going to need a website. This is a pretty important part because you’ll need this to sell your upcoming clothing range from. Make sure the website has a blog as well as a shop – you don’t want it to seem like you’re only after people’s money – you are, of course, but they don’t need to know that. In terms of blog content, the more naive of the ‘scene’ society will be more than happy to provide you with written content and even photos for free. Take advantage of this for as long as possible. Don’t worry, when a ‘naive’ becomes wise, another naive shall present thyself. Ensure your website comes linked to a good shop feature, such as Shopify.

Done all that?! Excellent! You’re now ready to start taking money.

Launch your own clothing line. There are loads of ideas out there so why use your own energy and time thinking of your own? Take a look at someone else doing a decent job and outright copy them. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, don’t you know?!

Next, approach some lasses on Instagram that have no shame and will model your new-found merchandise with next to nothing on. Sex sells! More often than not, payment isn’t required; just give them a few examples of your China-made quality threads.

Lastly, every car club needs its own show! Yes, you’ll have the expense of the venue but any true scene kid is going to want to show their car at your scene show. And don’t forget to charge them for the privilege, too; scene kids attract scene kids and you’ll easily profit if you’re charging every man and his dog £10, £15, £20 just for them to show their car. I mean, it’s not like people would come if your show was empty of cars now is it?!… You’re onto a winner even before the doors open. Don’t worry about organisation; yeah you may be aware that the venue has a narrow entry and doesn’t really accommodate two lanes, but do keep in mind profit, profit, profit. Keep pushing the show and remain oblivious to the capacity. Oh, and if people queueing are unable to get into the show in time to show their car but they’ve paid for an advanced ticket, that is not your problem and you should in no way entertain a refund.

Lastly, simply reap the benefits – it’s that simple.

Disclaimer: I know most of you will have detected the sarcasm in this post, but I have to put in simple terms that this post is completely in jest. Those of you that know me in real life will know my level of sarcasm. I started my own magazine/car club way back in 2010 called Decked Daily (back when I was a youngster and still at university), so I’m also taking the piss out of myself! It did make me £800 at the time, though, to which I sold the website and social media accounts to go along with it and bought a 172 RenaultSport Clio. Life is too short not to take the mick out of yourself, but if anyone has been seriously butt hurt by this post, hit me up on Instagram @dannibagnall.