Anyone who feels the need — the need for speed — can sign up for the driving experience of a lifetime. LTF Adventures — which stands for “living life to the fullest” – is a new company, headed by San Diego native Mauricio Martinez, that offers drivers over the age of 25 the opportunity to spend two hours driving a Ferrari 360 Modena, a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Porsche 911 Turbo through Malibu.
Martinez meets two customers per driving session in the parking lot behind Vintage Grocers at Trancas Country Market where they are given instruction on how to drive each of the three cars. Martinez then leads drivers on a tour through the windy, scenic roads of the Santa Monica Mountains, as well as the straightaways of Pacific Coast Highway. He talks to his driving customers via walky-talkies and pulls over every half-hour at turnouts to switch cars.
By the end of the two hours, each driver returns with the experience of having driven three of the world’s fastest and most expensive cars -— as well as the fun of sharing the ride with one free passenger (over the age of eight) and plenty of photo-ops.
Martinez, a young entrepreneur, decided to bring this particular business to Malibu and move here because he fell in love with the area.
“I think Malibu is one of the most beautiful places in the world with amazing scenery,” he said. “Mulholland Drive is a beautiful road to drive these kinds of cars. It’s an ideal place to experience how well the cars handle.”
So far, business is good.
“We’ve had an amazing response,” Martinez shared. He also says, “It’s an amazing price [$299, with some discounts available for $249] for getting to drive a million dollars worth of cars.”
It’s affordable and that was the key thing when I created it.”
If you ask Martinez to explain the differences between driving a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, he says they’re “Night and day apart. The Ferrari is a lighter car and has a V-8 engine and rear-wheel drive, while the Lamborghini is a V-10, four-wheel drive, which gives it more torque.” His personal favorite for everyday driving is the Porsche, because it’s “more comfortable.”
“[The business] started as a hobby for me and my friends,” Martinez said. “I had a company similar to this in San Diego and I wanted to go into a bigger market. For me, this is not work at all. Beautiful weather, amazing cars and the people are always happy.”
Martinez and his friends got the idea for the driving adventure business after attending the annual Concourse d’Elegance car show in Pebble Beach.
“We go there once a year and all the car companies are there with different events and parties at private houses,” he said. “You can drive anything you want — Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Aston-Martins. It’s beautiful driving their roads, but the parties are by invitation-only, so it’s not like just anyone can go and do it.”
Pebble Beach gave the entrepreneurs the idea of offering that driving experience to the general public.
On the latest Malibu driving tour, customer/driver Merrill Failla of Torrance was asked what he thought of the Porsche 911 Turbo he’d just spent 30 minutes driving for the first time.
“It’s very nice, tight, highly engineered, powerful,” he glowed.
After driving the Lamborghini for a half-hour, fellow customer Henry Kass of Irvine said, “I liked it a lot. It’s fast and very easy to handle — the suspension is hard. I like the paddle shifting.”
The “paddle shifting” he referred to — using “paddles” or switches on the steering column to shift gears — is a relatively new development in racing cars and a feature of LTF’s sports cars. The shifting is done automatically to not waste valuable seconds on the racetrack shifting gears with a clutch.
Martinez said his Malibu driver experience customers tend to be 25-65 years old, 70% male and all income levels. He said a wife or girlfriend often gives it as a gift.
“Driving a Ferrari is on a lot of people’s bucket lists,” Martinez said. “I’ve had about eight people actually cry on the autocross afterwards because they’d just fulfilled their dream of a lifetime.”
For more information, go to ltfadventures.com.
