The Rise And Fall of Limos | Business Insider Explains | Business Insider

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it used to be that you saw lousine and wondered who was inside maybe a celebrity or a CEO limos used to be cool and Chic now they're kind of Gody and icky they're dying out even if the industry itself isn't business insiders Emily Stewart tells us how limos went from Decades of prestige to a fast fall out of fashion limos for a long time kind of felt like the height of fancy like a thing a corporate executive would take around the first limos were made in the early 1900s and they weren't even cars they were hor drawn carriages that just had more space then in the Roaring 20s manufacturers developed the limo into an elongated automobile and they just kept getting longer today some stretch limos are over 60 ft and easily fit 15 passengers and they have luxury touches like a full bar sofas and then rare cases a pool as more limos were produced more folks began renting them out not just the uber wealthy but then something changed it's important to talk about the 2008 financial crisis and the recession it was a really bad luck in 2008 for a CEO to be popping out of a limo so they started opting for more subtle ways of transportation after the CEOs others followed celebrities brides and grooms prom goers and funeral attendees I mean you think about the last few years kind of quiet l luxury has been a trend right where people want to have some affluent stuff they want to have nice things they want to do nice things but they don't want to look like it but it's not just a matter of social status booking a limo is not exactly easy or cheap nowadays with Uber andyt right you can kind of ride in a nice is car depending um without really having to call ahead without having to plan ahead I think that's something that does freak the industry out um one of the business owners I talked to referred to Uber and lift and ride shares as glorified hitch and there have been safety issues too in 2013 a limo fire in California killed five members of a bachelorette party and in 2018 a stretch limo crash in New York killed 20 people if you think about how they're made they're literally a car like a Cadillac or a Hummer and they're cut in half and then kind of welded back together and one guy described it to me as like Earths and crafts I don't really want to be in a car that feels like arts and crafts few stretch limos are even being made anymore and there are many used ones just Gathering dust you can find a lot of limos online on Craigslist on Facebook Marketplace solmos aren't dead but the industry has changed significantly in the past decade or two a transportation company that once had several limos in its 50 vehicle Fleet might now only have a couple or none at all many companies are even dropping the word limo from their names the modern day limo is hiding in plain sight it's not the stretch limo that you think of most of the time most of their fleets at this point are just other vehicles like SUVs that offer more space or a party bus so coming into this I was kind of like huh weird that limos are gone and by the end I was kind of like good good the limos are gone we don't want them anymore this to me felt like a little bit of a case where the marketplace got rid of something that we don't really want around anymore and again I don't want to say like every limo is a death trap or really fearmonger people but they're not that comfortable they're not that safe and when you have better options why not go with those [Music]