Maximillion Cooper brings Gumball Rally to Dubai

What led you into the world of Gumball?

I went to art school in London where I was doing a fashion degree and was in the same class as Alexander McQueen and Stella McC-artney so I was mixing with very creative people. For six or seven years I was also a rac­ing driver in various levels of motorsport. I started in Formula Ford and worked my way up to single seaters. I also raced in the Porsche Super Cup so I had this racing background and a whole bunch of diverse friends who went on to be heads of industry like McQueen and Stella McCartney.

I was also into skateboarding and did that at a high level and made friends with people like Tony Hawk who became a household name. I thought if I could put what was a powerful and eclectic bunch of people in the same room together I could create something they could all enjoy. We had skateboarders, designers, graffiti artists, bankers, racing team own­ers, musicians, and models. So I got 50 of my friends together and arranged a six-day drive around Europe with parties each night and that’s how it kicked off in April, 1999.

Were these people into exotic cars?

Cars were a focal point but I think the real attraction was creating a brand that was appealing and exciting to all of them, wheth­er they were a banker or a skateboarder. Also, it’s not really a supercar rally. The cars reflect people’s personalities so, yes, there are billionaires on the rally in their hypercars but sometimes you also have someone driving an E-Type Jag or a fifties Bentley.

Where did the name Gumball come from?

I had been racing for some big corporations and visited some exotic place, like Monaco for example, and they were spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on these parties and generally they were really dull and cor­porate compared to other parties I was going to in London which were part of the fashion scene which had no money but put on an amazing event. I wanted to bring that quality to a car event. That’s why it works. Gumball is a word that in the eighties was used to de­scribe popular culture, like chewing gum, how you chew it up and you spit it out, a famous for five minutes kind of thing. Also, because it was a rally it was like a ball rolling from a to b so it’s got that double meaning of getting from one place to another while creating a popular cultural brand.

How many rallies have you had since 1999 and are you surprised by its a success?

There has been one every year since and I guess I knew that putting these people together would create something interesting and newsworthy. For example, in that first rally Chris Eubank drove it in his monster truck, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell took part, as did Jay Kay from Jamiroquai, Tony Hawk, Johnny Knoxville from Jackass, bankers and a Saudi Prince. It got incred­ible newspaper and maga­zine coverage. So it became very apparent that I should do it each year because it was a great way of bringing together celebrity names and creating a unique adventure.

How much does it cost to stage?

I bankrolled the first one and ended up a couple of hundred thousand pounds in debt but the incredible coverage attracted media and sponsors who wanted to be part of it and by the second year I had some pretty heavyweight sponsorship deals which eased the financial burden.

By this time I had decided not to treat it like a supercar run or normal rally. I wanted to bring a completely different mindset to it. Half my friends are car fanatics and the other half aren’t. They are in it for the parties and the social scene so it couldn’t just be about the cars.

MTV got on board for the third rally and followed the guys from Jackass and the show they made was a massive success so in the US the brand recognition went sky high and some big sponsorship deals started to come in, from Hasbro toys to Sony Playsta­tion who made a video game of the Gumball. Within a five year period we had gone from an idea of putting something on which was pretty unique and nobody really knew what it was about to turning over tens of millions so it was an exciting growth and on track to being what it set out to be, not just a car rally but more about brands and lifestlyle.

Did you really think combining car rallies and racing with this amazing celebrity party scene would be a recipe for success?

Anyone who has done the Gumball Rally is going to talk about it for the rest of their lives because it is a complete contrast to everything else in the greater scheme of things. It kind of became an exclusive club but now it is 5000 strong. It’s an incredibly powerful group of people, many in the Forbes List of the wealth­iest people in the world and I didn’t factor that kind of networking in when I started this. The Gumball Rally has opened doors to busi­ness opportunities all around the world.

It also appeals to the not-so-rich, right?

Absolutely, and that is really important to me. The rally is still the focal point for everything we do and it attracts hundreds of thousands of people. It’s aspirational as a brand and it has become a bucket list things where people say that one day they want to do the Gumball.

It costs £40,000 per two-man car but is it possible for anyone to enter the Gumball?

Yes, I have had many people on the rally over the years who haven’t got the money but they went out and raised it between them from sponsorships but the demand for places is far greater than the availability.

The entry is capped at 120 cars, a large enough number to make an impact in any city but small enough to be manageable. Most of the places are taken each year but we are maybe looking at around 30 or 40 new cars for each rally which isn’t that many so it is not just about having the money, you need to be interesting.

Just being a billionaire or a prince doesn’t mean you will get on the rally. It’s about how we can make it diverse so you have a great chance of getting on the rally if you have got a LaFerrari or something really incredible but you have an equally good chance if you want to do it in a Mini Cooper. It’s about being a fun person. It’s also important to know that this is not a race. It is roadtrip adventure of a life­time with an incredible social scene.

Is there a danger that the Gumball is now over-organised and could become boring?

What has kept it unique and evolving is that we never use the same route twice. We always try to incorporate totally unique places and interesting people to keep it fresh.

Is there any chance of the Gumball Rally ever starting or finishing in the UAE?

We already have some influential people from the Middle East generally who take part. I am sure we can incorporate it at some point bec-ause it seems a natural fit. We could fly into the UAE and maybe incorporate two or three days of the rally here. I can see it happening in a couple of years so it would be nice to talk to the right people about that.