The Customer
Across Europe, car clubs and automotive organisations are continuing to grow as society falls back in love with the simple art of driving in the autonomous age. In the UK alone, car club memberships have increased by a significant 38% from 228,097 in 2020 to 367,899 in 2023.
Alongside the rise of typical ‘Sunday driver’ meets has been heightened demand for events that provide something a little bit more special – and that’s where our customer comes in.
OneLife Rally specialises in organising adventures for supercar enthusiasts through some of the best driving roads our planet has to offer. Since 2017, the brand has offered open-style rally events that celebrate automotive excellence, the spirit of driving and the power of community.
Europe has been host to every one of OneLife Rally’s events since its inception, but such has been the interest from around the globe that the brand needed to scale up and add a more spectacular event to the calendar in October 2023.
The Challenge
To do so, OneLife Rally stepped away from Europe for the first time and instead planned an event across Kenya, Africa, driving from Nairobi to Malindi and stopping at strategic locations to meet enthusiasts along the way.
Taking part in the ‘OneLife Rally Safari’ meant getting six supercars from Slovenia to Kenya, but such high-priced items being shipped meant that security was of paramount importance. Having only previously had dealings in Europe before, there were also a number of burning logistics questions that needed answering: how long will it take to get there, how will containers be packed, how is customs clearance granted, and more.
OneLife Rally turned to the Maersk branch of Koper in Slovenia to have these questions answered and ultimately make sure their event could go ahead with the supercar delivery.
When organising the event, of course, we encountered countless challenges, and one of them was the transportation of cars to Kenya. How? With whom? What do we even need? What are the procedures? We could go on and on, because the questions that we didn't have the answer to, just kept coming back and forth. We had almost given up trying, when we encountered the exceptional Maersk team in Koper.
The Solution
Handling precious and special cargo is nothing new for Maersk, so the team in Slovenia built a fully tailored solution for OneLife Rally that not only got the supercars to Kenya safely and on time, but also handled the complexities at the border.
First of all, the cars were prepared for transport and added securely to containers at their home in Slovenia. This meant draining them of all fluids and securing using harnesses, followed by stuffing the containers with materials to further prevent movement.
One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to transporting special cargo, and even the slightest neglect can cause significant loss. Maersk representatives worked closely with OneLife Rally to understand the requirements of their cargo, before fully customising a solution that ensured the cars’ safety while in transit – giving ultimate peace of mind.
From there, inland transportation was used to get the supercars to the port of Genoa ahead of departure for Kenya via Maersk’s ocean services. However, getting the cars to Kenya is only half the battle, as they still needed to be legally cleared for export into the country.
Maersk’s team of customs experts managed to procure temporary export customs clearance for the six supercars into Kenya, allowing them to take part in the event and then be imported safely back to European shores at its conclusion.
The process demonstrates not only Maersk’s global network delivering time-sensitive cargo, but also the brand’s end-to-end, tailored supply chain management that leaves no stone unturned and addresses all logistics needs.
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