Happy Birthday to us!

Well, we did it! We hit our double digit birthday! Although the average 10 year old hasn’t gone through as much as we have in the past 10 years, we’d like to think we’re well past our adolescence phase and well into adulthood. To quote Smash Mouth, the years started comin’ and they really didn’t stop comin’. 

Our mission for the past 10 years has been to make exotic cars accessible to everyone. Whether it’s your 12 year old brother or your 90 year old grandma, we wanted anyone to be able to experience the thrill of being in a supercar. It’s incredibly gratifying to know that after completing over 320,000 drives in the past 10 years, we’ve stayed true to our mission. 

Our First Company Racetrack Outing

For our 10 year anniversary, we had our entire Xtreme team invite their friends and family to the Autobahn Country Club racetrack, just 40 miles away from our headquarters in Chicago. This was the first time we had hosted a team outing at the racetrack! Surprising, right? But yes, it was time to offer our team and their loved ones a true look into what a day at the racetrack was like, which meant free drives for all!

This was especially important for us to offer not only to align with our mission of putting people in supercars, but also to make sure anyone tied to Xtreme has reaped the benefits of being a part of our community.

On top of supercar driving, we told everyone to bring their own cars to track on the racetrack. One of the best parts about working with a bunch of automotive enthusiasts is seeing what cars they have stored in their garage!

Along with racetrack drives, we did go-karting and enjoyed the rest of the day with – you guessed it, cake. 

Ok maybe you didn’t guess cake, but it was our birthday.

The Roads Not Taken

A lot has happened in the past 10 years. Just last year, we added a whole new operation to our business that has taken us off the racetrack and onto beautiful scenic roads across the country. But also, a lot didn’t happen. Once upon a time, we were supposed to add helicopter rides to our Xperience. As it turns out, helicopters are really expensive so that idea was a bust. We also had McLaren’s, now we don’t (here’s why). Here’s a few more things you probably didn’t know about us…

• One of our locations didn’t have a garage 
• We worked out of a storage space that was housing palettes of champagne
• We went international in Guatemala for a month
• We bought an inflatable tent for the front of house… it had a 5 foot tall door that most of our team couldn’t get through

• We had a full time location in New Orleans
• We used to have plywood printed car cutouts that would keep getting blown over from the wind, almost knocking people over

• Our entire company operated out of one trailer
• We would transport millions of dollars worth of supercars on open haulers

At one point, this was our entire fleet (which we thought was A LOT), and it fit in this garage:

And most importantly…

We made up a unique, one of a kind industry that has never been well-replicated.

It’s Been A Bumpy Ride

As we’ve gone through the trials and errors of what it takes to run a business, our guests have held onto the ride and experienced the turbulence as well. We’re in the business of giving people an experience of a lifetime and unfortunately, like any business, there were times we couldn’t deliver our very best. The upside? Our guests comfortably let us know when these times happen, and we learn from them. This open style of communication comes from the relationships we’ve curated over the years, and for that – we are grateful.

We humbly thank all our past, present, and future customers for contributing to our success – not by simply attending our events, but for your transparency, feedback, and loyalty.

It Takes More Than a Well-Oiled Machine to be a Well-Oiled Machine

We don’t like to use the cliché “we’re like a family” because it’s overused and can be seen as a negative thing if you’re the kind of family that fights and gets on each other’s nerves all the time. But that’s the reality of being “like a family” because at the end of the day, you still love and care for each other, even if someone ate the leftovers you left in the fridge that you were excited about. 

In 10 years, you can bet that we’ve all gotten on each other’s nerves at one point or another. At the end of the day, we set aside our differences because we recognize how impactful everyone’s role in our company is. Regardless of whether you’re the CEO, a coordinator, an instructor, or a technician on our team, you are an equal human that is important to us –  no matter what your role is. 

Thank you to our Xtreme Xperience family. We couldn’t have done it without you. 

…and many morrrreeee!