The Long Demise of the Stretch Limousine

Over a number of days in early March, carmakers and limousine firm operators gathered on the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for an annual conference, the place they went to panels and events and admired shiny new celebration buses, vans and black sport utility automobiles.

But one thing was lacking.

“There wasn’t one stretch limousine on the show floor,” stated Robert Alexander, president of the National Limousine Association, a commerce group. “Not one.”

Decades in the past, stretch limos have been a logo of affluence, used virtually solely by the wealthy and well-known. Over time, they turned extra of a typical luxurious, booked for kids’s birthday events or by youngsters heading to the promenade.

These days, it appears as if hardly anybody is using in a stretch limo. While the limousine identify has caught, the limo business has shifted to chauffeur companies in virtually something however precise stretch limos, which have largely been supplanted by black S.U.V.s, buses and vans.

“The limo business isn’t your father’s limo business anymore,” Mr. Alexander stated.

Today, the stretch limo represents lower than 1 p.c of companies provided by limo corporations, down from about 10 p.c a decade in the past, in line with the affiliation.

“The stretch limo is — what’s the expression? — gone like the dodo bird,” Mr. Alexander stated. “Extinct.”

Limo firm operators and business leaders say that the demise of the stretch limo could be attributed to the cumulative impact of a sequence of blows over a number of years.

The first, they stated, was the Great Recession. Then got here the rise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft, and a pair of lethal stretch limo crashes that ushered in new rules in New York State, one of many business’s most vital markets. Over that point, stretch limos step by step fell out of favor, as passengers opted to journey considerably much less conspicuously in smooth sedans or black S.U.V.s.

Horse-Drawn Wagons to Hummer Limos

The birthplace of the stretch limo is believed to have been Fort Smith, Ark. Armbruster Stageway, a coach builder that began off restoring horse-drawn wagons greater than 100 years in the past, is credited with creating the primary combustion engine limousine within the Nineteen Twenties. By 1985, the corporate was one of many main producers of limos within the United States, making about 1,000 a yr.

But round that point, many automobile corporations stopped making limos. Specialty coachmakers crammed the void by taking a unique strategy: reducing a sedan in half, inserting a midsection and welding all the things collectively. For about $50,000, customized producers promised deluxe outcomes that would embrace a TV and even a mattress along with the compulsory well-stocked bar.

As extra limos have been produced, they turned extra accessible and started attracting a clientele past celebrities and the über-rich. People started reserving them for airport journeys. A restaurant in New Jersey provided to choose up diners in a limo, drive them to dinner and take them house afterward. And for some suburban youngsters, it turned a ceremony of passage to pile right into a stretch limo throughout promenade season, typically attempting — with combined outcomes — to sneak booze previous drivers thrust into the function of reluctant chaperone.

“In the best-case scenario, somebody would use you all day to go to meetings in, let’s say, Manhattan,” Mr. Alexander stated, including {that a} driver might then take a consumer to a lodge to clean up earlier than whisking the client again out in town. “That kind of coincided with kind of the nightlife of the city coming alive in the late ’70s and ’80s,” he stated.

Limousine operators like Scott Woodruff, president and chief government of Majestic Limo & Coach in Des Moines, made changes for the rising demand. By the early 2000s, an period when the Hummer limo first appeared and celebration buses have been being tricked out with bench seats, TVs and minibars, stretch limos made up a couple of quarter of the automobiles in his fleet.

“Every year, you would see the limos get larger and larger,” Mr. Woodruff stated.

Chuck Cotton, who owns VIP Limo in Oklahoma and has been within the enterprise greater than 30 years, stated his fleet peaked at 35 stretch limos, six celebration buses and 4 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans, which carry a couple of dozen individuals.

Then the housing market collapsed in 2008, setting in movement the longest and sharpest financial downturn for the reason that Great Depression — and the start of the tip of the stretch limo.

Recession, Ride Shares and Regulations

The downturn prompted corporations to chop spending and shed staff. Demand for stretch limo rides cratered, as unemployment and fuel costs soared.

“The market imploded,” Mr. Alexander, of the National Limousine Association, stated.

The nation was nonetheless within the throes of the recession when Uber was based in 2009. Its predominant competitor, Lyft, arrived in 2012, and collectively they shook up the taxi business and in addition made chauffeured black vehicles extra accessible.

“When they first came on the scene, people — in particular, in our industry — really bristled,” Mr. Alexander stated of the ride-hailing companies.

“When a stretch pulls over, everybody turns around to see who’s getting in or getting out,” Mr. Rose stated. These days his purchasers choose the discretion of a black sedan or S.U.V.

The Limo Industry Today

While demand for stretch limos isn’t what it was within the Nineteen Eighties and even the early 2000s, the limo business is flourishing. It simply seems to be totally different now.

In addition to the shift to sedans and S.U.V.s, the business is embracing Sprinter vans and celebration buses. Barbara White, co-owner and chief monetary officer of VIP Transportation Group in Orlando, Fla., stated that her enterprise bought two of its stretch limos lately, changing one with a Sprinter van. With a fleet that additionally consists of buses, sedans and S.U.V.s, Ms. White’s firm supplies greater than 1,000 rides a yr, largely for weddings, she stated.

Matthew Daus, a lawyer and a former commissioner and chairman of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, stated that buses and vans seemed to be the way forward for the limo business.

“They’re going to be fancier on the inside, but they’re going to probably stay nice and discreet on the outside,” Mr. Daus stated. “The limousine industry is very resilient. They bounced back from the pandemic, and they are muscling into the motor coach and the charter industry.”

But the times of the stretch look like almost over.

Mr. Rose stated his firm in Queens used to have 4 stretch limos in a fleet of about 30 automobiles. In the Attitude New York storage at present, there are sedans and S.U.V.s, together with Lexuses and Cadillac Escalades, however there isn’t a single stretch limo. He bought his final one eight years in the past.

“And for the two years prior to that,” he stated, “it was pretty much a paperweight.”