If you’re a car enthusiast looking to socialize among like-minded people, you might be interested in becoming a member of RCLUB.
Founded in 2019, RCLUB (as in Our Club) has 250 members. The private membership club, based in the east end of Toronto, includes car enthusiasts, their partners, their children, even pets. Club members gather and engage in various automotive-related activities and events, including hands-on mechanics and maintenance workshops, driver training, exotic prototype viewings, single-day and weekend outings, kart races, film screenings, beverage tastings, sim challenges and the proverbial cars and coffee meetups.
RClub is in a decorated garage, which was once the home of a business for refining racing fuel. Inside are an assortment of members’ supercars, sports cars and vintage luxury cars, the oldest one a 1955 recreation of a Porsche Spyder owned by one of the original members.
Principal owner Nick Cassells is hoping to double the size of the membership. Members get special offerings including discounts on supplies, parts and an off-site storage facility about 20 minutes north to house 50 cars.
The club blends the best of Toronto’s fast-paced lifestyle with an enthusiastic love of cars and car culture.
I discovered RCLUB during a recent event with car designer/builder Nikita Bridan from OILSTAINLAB. He did a presentation to talk about the HF-11 car he and his brother Illya created that has the capability to run with interchangeable gas and electric powertrains.
RCLUB was initially opened by Adam Westland to offer a luxury car-sharing concept, modelled after the Classic Car Club Manhattan. Essentially, the purpose of the club was to give people a chance to drive an assortment of luxury cars that they normally wouldn’t have access to for the weekend, while building a close-knit community for local car enthusiasts. The club evolved from that original concept to allow members to now store, maintain, detail, and enjoy the 7500 square foot clubhouse that is open 24/7 to members.
Seeing some of the luxurious cars on the floor or on hoists, I immediately thought the venue offered members a secure place to house their luxury vehicles.
“It’s a convenience factor, and in the City of Toronto there’s not a lot of garages and some of our members have multiple cars,” Nick told me. “Some have three, four or five cars and they switch them out.”
Nick told me memberships start at $3,000 a year.
I blanched when he said that.
“If you think about it, it’s the price of buying a coffee a day” Nick said.
I told him that might not be the case if you’re buying a coffee at a chain that doesn’t have a barista. The again, I don’t have a car that even belongs among these luxury vehicles.
“The club has pivoted and changed into providing any service that a member can think of,” he said, noting such benefits as 40% of parts of all manufacturers, 40% of tires retailed by Continental Tire Canada, in-house mechanical work available or self-service. It also includes a concierge service to pick up the cars if they need to be taken to a manufacturer.
Growing up, Nick developed an understanding and appreciation of cars because his father owned a business restoring and repairing Corvettes. He went to university and became involved in hospitality, working for Anheuser-Busch for 12 years, and then involved in insurance and waste management. When recently approached by Westland about buying the club, he said it was a perfect fit combining his background.
“I was looking for the next thing and I wasn’t going to take a real serious look at a job or a career until I really figured out what I wanted to do, and when Adam approached me about this, I said, ‘Of course, 100%.’”
Perry Lefko is the Content Manager of The Car Magazine. He can be reached at [email protected]. Feel free to forward any story suggestions or comments.
