When I ask Emma Gwyther if she’s ever arranged a last-minute helicopter transfer into a Formula 1 track for one of her ultra-high-net-worth clients, she describes the task the way one might describe running a quick errand at the store.
“Oh yes, we’ve done that before,” Gwyther, founder and CEO of Interluxe Group tells me. “We all know what the traffic is like getting in and out of COTA (the Circuit of the Americas in Austin) and I’ve personally made sure that someone got on a helicopter to the airport to make their flight. We’ve pulled off things like that in 30 or 40 minutes.”
The British-born founder, who specializes in curating luxury automotive experiences, has spent the past 16 years building a network of top-tier suppliers, vendors and partners around the country who she can call upon at any moment to make what seems like the near impossible, happen. Crucially, they’re willing to “jump through hoops” to help her and her 38-person team cater to the 1% of the 1%.
“You're constantly asking for the unachievable, the unexpected, the unreasonable, but I think if you do it with a certain level of politeness and grace, you’re more likely to be successful,” she explains.
Gwyther entered the automotive industry as a college student by way of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where she helped the marketing agency running Mercedes’ experiential activations. “I decided over the course of that week that that was absolutely 100% what I wanted to do,” she says, noting that she persistently wrote 17 letters to the head of the agency until she was hired. Over the next decade, she worked her way up to running their Mercedes and Volkswagen Group accounts.
She relocated to the US in 2008, seeing an opportunity for growth in the American motorsport space long before Liberty Media came knocking on F1’s door. “When I moved here and I told people that I was a young woman working in motorsports, they assumed that I had something to do with NASCAR. Not many people knew about Formula 1, and even when they introduced the sport to Austin [in 2012], it never really took off in the way that I think the American marketplace had wanted it to,” she says. But Miami’s addition to the 2022 calendar, followed by Vegas in 2023, has transformed the landscape.
“We don't just have automotive clients [wanting to activate at F1 races] … I had an aviation client recently tell me that F1 is now superseding the Super Bowl for American private travel. The Super Bowl is at the heart of American culture and has always been that glorious epicenter of sport for a US audience; it’s interesting seeing that shift and the passion for F1 that is now spreading throughout the US.”
Gwyther’s rolodex of clients reads like the vehicle roll call for a James Bond film: Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Mercedes, to name a few. Her team orchestrates money-can’t-buy experiences for clients of those brands — a tall order when servicing people for whom money is no object.
She says spending time behind the wheel of a car — on an F1 track, when possible — is often at the heart of Interluxe’s programming, as it will be for those attending an ultra-exclusive Bugatti experience during the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
“We’ve created a best-of-the-best experience for their top clientele. What we’re facilitating has to be out of reach for these very privileged few which is a constant challenge — we’re always offering them something bigger, better, more novel, more unique. In this case, they will get track time and will get to be on the grid and participate in a parade with fellow Bugatti owners,” she explains.
“There’s also the pomp and circumstance that goes into the preparation: everything from the drivers briefing to personal custom-fitted race suits and customized helmets,” she continued. “We'll also be doing an on-road driving experience, where we'll be heading [into the desert] to something that we're calling the Bugatti Oasis.”
While many of her clients are traditional “gentleman racers,” Gwyther has noticed a shift in recent years. “Of our 22 Bugatti owners [attending the Vegas experience], three of them are women. It’s quite a strong number in such a small group where they are the decision-maker, the vehicle owner and the one wanting to participate.”
These clients, she adds, are “a special group of people who have been very successful in life. At the Bugatti level, these people are car collectors with multiple car ownership, who have done interesting and fun things with their lives.”
She’s even managed to get F1 drivers involved in experiences for her clients, most recently Carlos Sainz at the Miami Grand Prix. “For the 75th anniversary of Ferrari in the US we did a 75-car parade under police escort from the Faena Hotel to the Hard Rock Stadium — it was a truly presidential convoy,” she recalls. “The car owners just felt like royalty cruising right onto the F1 track. Carlos joined us and led the parade, then some of his family members came to our Casa Ferrari hospitality afterwards.”
As for how Gwyther managed to shut down entire highway junctions for the cavalcade? “There is a permit process, and then there's also a begging process,” she says with a laugh. “[Fostering] relationships, doing what you say you're going to do, and just being a professionally tight-run organization is key to achieving the impossible sometimes.”
Whether on or off the track, no request is too big or too small for Gwyther’s team. “We're in the business of knowing what these people want before they know that they want it. And that's the most important thing when delivering programs at this level,” she explains. “We're running a full scale hospitality, food and beverage operation that's 24/7 so whatever they might need, whenever they might need it, it's our job to facilitate that.”
Onboarding with clientele and attendees who reach out to the group begins more than six months ahead of time, allowing the team to craft individualized itineraries that could include anything from special birthday arrangements to private clothing styling services. Accommodation and dining are given the same meticulous attention to detail.
“We ask ‘How can we elevate a traditional restaurant experience?’ Maybe we bring in a Michelin star chef and adapt the cuisine to be authentic to the origin of the OEM manufacturer that's hosting the event. We’ll ask ourselves how we can tell a story of the origins of, say, the Bugatti brand, through culinary stories from the Mulhouse region in Alsace.”
Ultimately, Gwyther’s precision and innovation plays a key role in fostering customer loyalty for the brands she works with. “These experiences are the currency that many of these very premium brands are now trading off of for client loyalty. People will continue buying the products and being a part of the brand family to remain engaged with these events that they look forward to every year.”
