By Edward Jones
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May 13, 2026
Fast Lane Drive: An Interview With Founder Clément Connor
This week, Fast Lane Drive is celebrating its 8th anniversary after its founding by Clément Connor and Giovanni Letellier. Recognized as one of, if not the largest, exotic car club in the world, Fast Lane Drive spans 25 chapters across the United States and Europe with more than 2,000 members.
Not only is Fast Lane Drive impressive in its size, but also in its exclusivity. Members can only join through invitations and applications, and must also be interviewed and approved by a majority vote. This process has allowed Fast Lane Drive to stay true to its core values and roots, bringing together entrepreneurs, executives, creatives, and collectors who have, together, raised over $3 million for charitable causes.
To find out more about this incredible car club, we had the opportunity to sit down with Clément Connor and ask him a few questions which can be found below.
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1. You and Giovanni started Fast Lane in 2018 with a casual drive through San Diego. When did you realize it was becoming something bigger?
In 2018, when we created it, it was just a small group of friends driving together, socializing, having cool drives, and trying to exchange business. To be honest, I was really happy with the setup because I had a marketing agency at that time and my business was doubling every year pretty much from all the referrals I was getting. Then 2020 happened, COVID happened, and one of my members, Ian, was like, "Oh, I'm going to miss Fast Lane so much. It's going to be so hard. I have to move to Arizona." And I was like, "Why don't you open a chapter?" So we opened a chapter and the first month we got 100 applications. We're like, okay, we are really onto something. Then it took a little time and we opened LA, Vegas, Miami, Monaco. When we opened Monaco, pretty much everything doubled in the US. That has been our moment. We were like, okay, we are really onto something big, because nothing like Fast Lane Drive exists. When one member joins one chapter, they can go to any chapter around the world, and we realized something like this didn't exist. So we told ourselves, okay, let's push it really, really hard.
2. Fast Lane has grown from one San Diego chapter to more than 25 around the world. What's been the hardest part of scaling that quickly?
Honestly, dealing with my chapter owners, I would say. Creating setup, creating systems, making sure that everybody has freedom but at the same time respecting the brand is really important. Brand alignment. And also creating a solid team. It's really, really complicated to hire, to develop, to train. So it's something we're trying to push to do better, and it's really important to reinvent ourselves. We're dealing with really high-end people, and those people pretty much want things that they cannot do on their own. If they can go to a restaurant on their own, they don't need Fast Lane Drive. So we need all the time to reinvent ourselves with new ideas, new venues, new shows, new attractions. Otherwise, it just doesn't come back. It's really, really complicated. My event team is always on guard to make everything work.
3. Philanthropy sits right alongside passion and community as a core value of the club. Why does giving back matter so much to you personally, and what impact do you hope Fast Lane leaves on the communities its chapters call home?
There are two things on the philanthropy side. It's money, but the most important is time. For example, one time a kid was dying from cancer and 300 people showed up in front of the kid's house. When you saw the emotion of the parents crying and crying, you want to give back. The car community sometimes doesn't automatically have the best impression, and I want to show the world that car people are good people and they like to give back. So for me it's really a pillar. I try to help people with cancer, kids, or the police and firefighters. Things like this are really important. You see, this is life-changing for them, pretty much.
4. Beyond car ownership, what does the ideal Fast Lane member look like, and how do you protect the culture as you scale?
First of all, family-oriented. Really, really important. We are a family club. We want the husband and wife or the wife and husband to come. 25% of our members are women, so we are huge in the car community on that front. We are not a bachelor company. We are not a frat company. So that's really important. Number two, someone who likes to give back. If you don't like to give back some of your time or give a little money here and there, you have nothing to do here. Someone who is sociable. I know it sounds hard to say when you come to a social club, but if you come and stay on your own and don't try to socialize with other people, that's going to be really complicated in Fast Lane. So entrepreneurs, CEOs, doctors, lawyers, real estate people, tech people. But you'd be surprised, for example, in the Bay Area, 80% of our members are actually executives. So we try to adapt to different chapters.
That's why we are so selective, because if there's one bad apple in a chapter, it can destroy everything. We had a guy, for example, this is the fourth time he's asked for a refund for an event, and he doesn't realize that really hurts us, because we almost make no money on events, and the guy asks for a refund two or three days before. This type of person, who only thinks about himself, is not the right fit. Something that's really unique with Fast Lane is that when you arrive, everybody is equal. You don't have, "Oh, I have a better car, better watch, better business." No, you arrive here to have a good time and everybody is equal. I was talking to a guy who has an SP3, and I said, "What do you think if we create a section for only hypercars?" He said, "The worst idea I've ever heard in my life. I come to Fast Lane to have fun with the members and be equal with everybody, not to feel that I'm better."
5. What surprised you about exotic car culture overseas in Monaco, Paris, and Tokyo?
We really had to readapt. For example, in Monaco, we have to be way more discreet on social media. People don't want to be seen. We cannot show the plates in Europe, in Paris, or in Monaco. People don't want to be seen on social media. In the US it's the opposite. People say, "Do an interview of me, push me online, do things." In Europe, you have to be way more discreet in the way you approach. For example, in the USA nobody cares about breakfast. In France, if you don't do a breakfast, people would be so upset. You need to adapt to the culture. In France, if you don't do a one-to-three-hour lunch, they have a problem. In the USA, after 45 minutes, they're like, "Hey, can we go back on the road? Can we have more time? Can we do more things?" So it's really interesting between one and the other.
6. How do you choose corporate partners like duPont REGISTRY and Circuit of The Americas?
This is really important. As of now, I only have three major sponsors, and a lot of brands are asking me. It's even more important because would duPont REGISTRY put itself next to a brand that is not aligned with itself? It's the same thing with Fast Lane. We have partnerships with major watch brands. We don't put that on the website, but the members have access to watches that are really exclusive. Those brands, if you accept any sponsor anywhere in the world, they're not going to want to do business with you. So you really have to protect yourself. I would say the sponsors are even more important than the members, because imagine a bad sponsor has a really bad article come out about anything happening in their business. That's my reflection pretty much.
7. What goes into pulling off a multi-chapter rally, and which one stands out as a defining Fast Lane moment?
This is selecting our members. When you look at it, this is the same line of people who are here to have a good time. When I look at it, I say, I'm so lucky that we have members like this everywhere in the world. Quite frankly, a lot of other car clubs can do the same kind of event, but what they cannot do is, for example, for the anniversary, we're going to have members from Paris, Monaco, Miami, Los Angeles, OC. So you're creating a culture of everybody around the world, a melting pot into one place. I absolutely love the diversity in Fast Lane Drive. We accept everybody. We are really diverse in terms of orientation or religion. We want people to feel in a safe spot. The product in Fast Lane is when people arrive, they feel in a safe place where they can be themselves.
8. Eight years in, what's something about Fast Lane today that the version of you back in 2018 would never have predicted?
It's a hard question on the opposite side, because to be honest with you, I dreamed to be where we are at, and I envisioned to be where we are at. But in my wildest dream, I would have never dreamed that. Does that make sense? It's like I envisioned what we have, but at the same time I never expected it to be that big, that fast, and so incredible. It's something you have to understand, Edward. I live Fast Lane Drive. I do one to two events per weekend. Look, it's Monday morning, I've been at my office since 6:00 a.m. I don't take days off. I live, breathe, sleep Fast Lane Drive. What's really important for me is, yes, having something in a different country, I didn't dream that on that scale. But where we are today, it's been on the riding path for years. The year I created Fast Lane Drive, I said to someone, "You will see one day. I will create a community where we can connect people around the world in the car community for meaningful experiences." And people were like, "Oh, yeah, right." And I was like, "No, you will see. You will see." So it's not obviously perfect, we have a lot to grow, but we are on the right path.
9. Looking back across eight years, which milestone or moment do you consider the real turning point for the club?
Fast Lane in Monaco. This is the biggest turning point, to be honest with you. In France, everything takes two to three times more time, and the day we opened Fast Lane Monaco, that's been a huge turning point. People were like, "Oh, you are Fast Lane Monaco. Wow." To give you an idea, we opened Fast Lane Monaco in May. We announced it May 25th. June 15th for the opening, we had 60 cars. We had over 100 Americans we flew from the US in two weeks. We told ourselves, okay, we have a really strong following base of really big fans of Fast Lane Drive who are following us everywhere in the world. That's when Fast Lane skyrocketed pretty much in the US, because being bicoastal in the US is cool, but being in a country like Monaco, like Paris, that changed everything for the club.
10. Five years from now, what does Fast Lane Drive look like?
I want to continue to develop more in the USA, but we want to open more in Europe. We want to duplicate in Europe. Obviously, as you know, Europe takes way more time. It's way more complicated than everything. I also want to implement Fast Lane Business right now. We're going to launch this and test it in San Diego. We realize that right now it's a hard period for a lot of people and we want to support each other. So we're going to launch this side of Fast Lane. We're going to have Fast Lane Drive for the drive and Fast Lane Business for the business, and we're going to meet in a safe environment every two months approximately to try to exchange business, talk about issues, talk about problems. The vision right now was mostly for fun, and we want to help people also get a little more business out of it.
