MoreCars.net to Open Online ``Garage'' for Enthusiasts, Collectors, Fans
14 December 1999
MoreCars.net to Open Online ``Garage'' for Enthusiasts, Collectors, Fans
MENLO PARK, Calif.--Dec. 14, 1999--What does everyone -- well, very nearly everyone -- have? What inspires abject fascination in youth, warm nostalgia in the silver years, and passion at all ages? Besides sleeping and working, where do people spend most of their time? What has figured prominently in millions of people's sex lives? What is the number-one symbol of globalization in industry? What, until now, has been ill-served by the Internet, despite its ubiquity and influence? Give up? It's the automobile.And, starting in Spring 2000, MoreCars.net will offer an online "garage", for housing informative, entertaining, useful and engaging material on all things automotive, from your daily driver to museum collections, to anyone that wants one.
"MoreCars.net treats the automobile with the respect it deserves," said MoreCars Founder and CEO Maury O'Hearn. "While there are a number of established sites that process the automobile as a commodity -- none deal with it as a cherished possession, a work of art, or a piece of history. Automobile enthusiasts form the third largest self-described single community on the Internet, and they don't even know it."
Content is king, and MoreCars.net has a vast kingdom of content from at least three areas to manage and distribute on its site. First, MoreCars will aggregate individual contributions of members who maintain garages on the site. Members have the option of submitting video, stills and data from their collections. Second, there are institutional content providers, such as manufacturers, museums, collectors, auctioneers, and dealers. MoreCars will serve these groups by making their content more accessible to a wider, more targeted audience. Third, there are huge troves of footage, both contemporary and historic, to entertain and serve the automobile enthusiast. Ultimately, MoreCars will gather these with its own production team, as well as acquire footage of races, concours, auto shows and other program material.
MoreCars' compendium of knowledge, information and resources is a panacea for the amateur auto enthusiast and professional alike. Looking for a parabolic headlight lens for your 1932 Ruxton? Want to find out where the MGA club is in Southern California? Want to find a great gift for your car nut husband? Want to unload your collection of Michelin Man coffee mugs? MoreCars is your information source.
How does MoreCars manage all this information in a way most useful to the visitor? MoreCars' technical department will develop and deploy an advanced, proprietary search engine that will make managing and navigating all of this content a Sunday drive for the user. At the same time, the MoreCars system has significant back-office muscle to manage the site's ecommerce and asset management needs.
Finally, MoreCars is a company with the knowledge and ability to deliver content and technology not just over the Internet, but on other interactive platforms as well. MoreCars expects to have numerous revenue streams from the operation, including commerce between enthusiasts, between enthusiasts and vendors, business to business, back-office ecommerce, classified and banner advertising and sponsorship, branded services and more.
MoreCars boasts a "best of breed" team -- a self-described "bunch of car junkies and much more" -- in the concept, management and execution of its revolutionary concept. O'Hearn, an accomplished automobile and automobilia expert who founded and operated a successful automobile restoration business -- Great Marques -- also served in executive management positions in banking and restaurant businesses in the Bay Area. Founder and President Jeffrey Diamond, aside from his credits as a visual effects specialist for motion pictures, has consulted for companies ranging from IBM, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems and Apple Computer. Between them, MoreCars' top management holds more than 100 vehicles in their combined collections.
Road & Track Editor-in-Chief Thomas L. Bryant said in the magazine this April, "cars are freedom vehicles and entertainment. They enhance our independence, our ability to roam far and wide, see new sights, meet new people and generally be more in touch with the world we live in. And they give us access to a dream world that is all too often well out of reach." These words, referencing a more than hundred-year-old invention, are curiously but not coincidentally applicable today to ... the Internet. MoreCars cements this connection in an elegant and effective way, drawing on similar passions and yearnings.
More than just another Silicon Valley startup, "MoreCars.net is not just a company chasing Gen Y eyeballs or a niche market," Diamond concluded. "The appeal is nearly universal. MoreCars has the potential to become the AOL of the automobile enthusiast domain. We want to tap into the romance and ardor people feel for their cars. How more exciting could it be than to deliver to users' desktops one of the icons of the American Dream?"
