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Teenagers prom 3000 dollar ride { May 16 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61557-2003May15.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61557-2003May15.html
For Teenagers' Big Night, an Even Bigger Ride
By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2003; Page B01
Tomorrow night, Alaina Mohanco will slip into a sparkly red-and-pink backless prom dress with rhinestones along the top. She'll dine at an ultrahip restaurant with 18 of her best friends and then dance the night away at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington.
But when the evening ends, this Cinderella most certainly will not be riding home in a carriage. The senior at George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church and her friends will roll out in an H2 Hummerzine, complete with six TVs, a DVD player, strobe lights under the leather seats, a faux fireplace, a fog machine and a disco ball.
They passed on the optional sushi bar.
"If we're going to get a limo, it's senior year, we might as well put it all into it," said Alaina, who pooled her money with her 18 friends ($157 each) to afford the nearly $3,000-a-night chauffeur-driven rental.
Prom season is in full swing. And while most teenagers who want to ride in style still rent traditional limos, increasing numbers are shelling out thousands of dollars to ride in stretch SUVs and other "exotics" -- a 38-foot Lincoln Navigator, a Cadillac Escalade with fiber-optic lighting, a Hummer with hardwood floors -- more common in rap music videos than on suburban cul-de-sacs.
Teenagers "want to feel like Ben and J.Lo. for the night," said Tom Mazza, executive director of the National Limousine Association. "What we're doing is we're giving them an experience . . . and that experience is like being a VIP. We're making them feel like they're arriving at the Academy Awards."
At Z-Best Limousines in Glen Burnie, there are no Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez sightings. But the drivers do literally roll out the red carpet for their young charges. Rachel Clemmer, 18, of Columbia said she felt like a star when she stepped out of a white Navigator with mirrored ceilings and onto the red carpet last weekend at Atholton High School's prom. So what if her date hobbled by her side on crutches?
"The teachers were like, 'Oh my God, where are you coming from?' " she said. "It felt really special."
Brionne Walters, a senior at River Hill High School in Clarksville, was posing for pictures outside a friend's house on her prom night when her ride pulled up: a 38-foot, 22-passenger Navigator with leopard-print rugs and fringed pillows inside. "This is class," Brionne said. "Hold on," she said to a parent frantically snapping photos, "I'm gonna go stand by the limo."
The adults' jaws dropped, too -- in part because of the $1,700-a-night price tag.
"Teens a lot of times are not realistic," said Garfield Bowen, publisher and founder of Prom Guide magazine, which ranked stretch SUVs as the most-desired limo for proms. "They have what they want, and then they have what they can afford."
Not every teenager believes bigger is better, though. Margot Dankner, an 18-year-old senior at Sidwell Friends School in the District, said some of her classmates rode in a stretch Hummer to the prom last year and it looked "absolutely ridiculous."
"It looked like they were going to invade a country or something," she said.
Instead, Margot and 13 of her friends will head to their prom next month in what she called "a glorified shuttle bus" at a cost of $504 for the night. Margot called eight companies to find a car that she and her friends could squeeze into for under $100 a person. She found what was touted as a 2003 Mercedes with a TV and a 16-CD changer. "It turned out to be just a giant van," she said.
Stretch SUVs and other specialty limos are the most expensive to rent. Prices in the Northeast average $130 per hour, compared with about $60 per hour for a standard limousine, according to data from Limousine and Chauffeured Transportation magazine. Those rates often increase during prom season.
At American Eagle Limousine in Lorton, it costs $2,500 to $3,000 for eight hours in a Cadillac Escalade, decorated with murals of dolphins that glow in black light on the ceiling and behind the wood-grain bar. The company's top executive, Tony Ahmadi, said he has spent up to $300,000 to customize and stretch the cars.
Only two U.S. manufacturers, Ford and Lincoln, have certified their SUVs to be turned into limos. Stretching a car can add three or four tons to its weight, Mazza said, and some car frames may not be able to hold up. Still, stretched Hummers, P.T. Cruisers and even Volkswagen Beetles will hit the highway during prom season.
In the words of Shawn Toskov, manager of All Stretched Out limousines in Linthicum Heights: "If you've got the money to do it, anything can be done."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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