LUXURY: Loaded Suburbans, not limos, are most popular rides

December 6, 2000

By ERIN ALLDAY THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Gary Buffo Jr. started his limousine business the same way most people in his industry do -- he went out and bought the best big car he could afford.

It was his next step that turned his business into the thriving company it is today. Buffo visited other limousine companies and took notes on everything they were doing wrong.

His strategy seemed to work. A decade after starting Pure Luxury Limousines with one limo and one employee -- his wife -- Buffo has 102 people working for him and a fleet of 61 vehicles.

"My philosophy was just doing it better than anyone else was doing it," Buffo said. "Then, after four years, we got to where we were turning down business. We couldn't run it as a mom-and-pop anymore."

Limousine companies are doing especially well in this soaring economy, Buffo said. Between swelling growth in Silicon Valley and in Sonoma County's bubbling Telecom Valley, Buffo is running limos, Towncars and Suburbans popular with celebrities almost around the clock in the Bay Area.

The company is headquartered in Petaluma but also has an office in Union City to serve Silicon Valley. In Sonoma County, his business is split about evenly between wine country tours and executive service.

But it's the executive end of things that is really driving growth in his business. With so much money pouring into Bay Area high-tech firms, not only do business leaders expect to be treated to chauffeured rides, having a driver becomes almost a necessity.

"The nature of our business is such that people like my boss, their time is so valuable that they don't have time to drive anymore," said Toni McWilliams, assistant to JDS Uniphase president Jay Abbe. "They must be doing business all the time. We need to be able to stick him in a Towncar and have somebody take care of the driving and the hassle."

With the sweeping growth in Telecom Valley, the last few years in particular have seen an explosion in Buffo's business. His company was barely profitable after about four years of business. This year, he expects to bring in about $7 million.

Last summer, he moved the company to a new building in Petaluma that is about 12 times the size of the old one. It includes a dispatch center where employees handle up to 300 trips a day, and a garage area for daily car washes and minor mechanical repairs. He hopes to add 40 vehicles to his fleet next year.

All of the recent growth has come at a cost.

To stay ahead of the competition, which mostly comes from national companies with local branches, Buffo has had to invest in programs and services with big price tags for a small company.

The cars themselves are far more expensive than they used to be. His first limo cost less than $50,000. The fully stocked ones he now buys come close to $100,000.

A couple of years ago he bought a machine that monitors incoming flights at local airports, so his drivers can arrive at the gate to pick up their rides at just the right time, instead of wasting hours waiting for delayed planes. Buffo bought the system for $30,000, and it costs $1,000 a month to maintain it.

Those systems are not what people ordinarily associate with limousine companies, Buffo said. But his company has moved far beyond the days of owning one or two stretch limos and renting them to high school students on prom night.

When Buffo first made his round of limo companies to figure out what they were doing right or wrong, most of the mistakes he saw came down to simple things. He decided to distinguish his company by keeping cars spotless and the drivers' suits pressed, and arriving at the appointment on time.

"Word of mouth is everything in this business," Buffo said. "Our customers are everyone from the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to grandparents on vacation. If you have a bad run, 30 people will find out about it."

Buffo admits that his company is among the more expensive in the area. He charges anywhere from $50 to $175 an hour, depending on the kind of vehicle and the customer. Almost 90 percent of his business now is from corporate accounts, and they get the best rates.

Ironically, limos aren't even a big part of Buffo's business anymore.

Instead, more than half of Buffo's vehicles are sedans -- snappy black Lincolns and Cadillacs with all the extras. He has about 20 limos and a couple of shuttle buses.

The vehicles that are becoming most popular are the fully loaded Suburbans -- they're the size of tanks on the road, but even with their tinted windows they don't draw much attention to their passengers. Buffo said the Suburbans are especially popular with celebrities who want to keep a low profile or corporate executives who don't want their employees to see them riding in a limo.

Buffo said he's been pleased with the progress he's made with his company. He started it just as the state economy was heading into a recession, so no one really expected Pure Luxury to last very long.

But Buffo felt like he knew what he was doing. He was raised in small businesses -- his father owned several companies while Buffo was growing up. In fact, it was while his father was running a pizza franchise that Buffo first decided to start his own business. At 20, he was already tired of working for someone else.

Now his father is a vice president at Pure Luxury.

"When I worked for him, it was impossible. I hated it," Buffo said, smiling. "Now that he's working for me, its great."

Press Democrat Staff Writer Erin Allday can be reached at eallday@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5494.