Still Thinking......

It's been a while since the "old style" Town Car was bounced from the Lincoln lineup, to be replaced with the MKT Crossover.  The reception for the MKT has been tepid at best, and word on the street is that Lincoln has already set its sights on another version of the Town Car for 2014.  For companies like OML WORLDWIDE, this brand "volatility" poses a threat to any consistency we hope to have in our fleet, which may not seem like a big deal on the surface yet has some interesting ramifications.
As a refresher, a majority of livery vehicles on the road since the mid to late 1980's have been Lincoln Town Cars.  Sure there were some Cadillacs, Chryslers, and a Lexus or two, but the flagship was the Town Car.  On the plus side, every customer that used a limousine company probably knew what to expect when their car showed up since they were virtually the same from coast-to-coast.  On the management side of the equation, it was simple to value your services based on the fact that vehicle pricing was fairly stable.  Once you factored in items like insurance, chauffeur costs, repairs and maintenance, you had a baseline that was easy to understand.  That is starting to change as older Town Cars are being replaced you new vehicles from a variety of manufacturers at a variety of prices.  This is where it can get tricky.
Operators across the United States must make decisions based on how they want their company to be viewed by their clients.  If a company that has been running Town Cars decides to go "cheap", their clients will likely (at some point) start to ask..."What's in it for me?".  If the vehicle cost is 20% less...shouldn't rates go down proportionately?  Good question, at least from the consumer point of view.
OML WORLDWIDE has a long history of providing luxury transportation options to our clientele, and the loss of the Town Car will not change our approach.  While we haven't committed to a single vehicle as our anointed "replacement", we are doing our homework, and relying on input from our industry partners to establish a game plan that will take us from where we are now to where we want to be 10 years from now.  Whatever we do, we will do it with quality and luxury in mind.