Gym owner sells £40k car to fund virus safety measures
A Bath gym owner has sold his prized £40,000 Aston Martin to fund a new air filtration system to counteract coronavirus.
Mark Lamputt, 38, is the owner of Space Gym in Bear Flat and had only owned the car for one week after buying it second-hand when coronavirus hit.
He said: “To be honest I barely got the chance to drive it before I was trying to sell it again. I drove it up the road a couple of times.”
Mr Lamputt has been running the gym in Bath for 15 years and has already seen the business through the financial crash and a horrific fire that gutted the building three years ago.
He said he wanted to sell the car almost immediately to refurbish his gym with a new air filtration system that pumps air in from outside meaning the gym has fresh air every 15 minutes as old, dirty air is pumped out.
Mr Lamputt said: “I had only just bought the car when I needed to sell it again. It is a lovely car but it was really important for our customers to know that we were doing everything we can to make the gym as safe as possible.
“The costs of all the work we did on the gym, including the air filtration system came to about £40,000 so the car covered it.
“In the end, it took ages to sell as no one was buying a fancy car in coronavirus. It was a relief when it finally did go.”
The self-proclaimed “petrol head” explained that he had always driven nice cars before coronavirus but that now he is driving a van which was really useful when doing the renovation work.
Mr Lamputt said: “Driving a van reminds me of when I started out and had no money. But it has been great and really useful.”
“As soon as we closed down I thought we’d use this chance to work on the gym and make it as good as it can be. What’s also been great is that we have an outside space where people can train in the fresh air too. We immediately saw a reduction in our memberships, about 50 per cent cancelled because of coronavirus and shielding. We have a lot of older customers who are just fantastic and for lots of them, they wouldn’t feel ready to go back to a gym.
“I’m hoping the new air filtration system will see them come back. It was really awful to lose them all so suddenly but we have a really good community spirit here and so I am hoping they will come back.
“Perhaps we have gone OTT with this system but we want people to feel safe.”
Mr Lamputt said the coronavirus pandemic had been “gut-wrenching” for the business which is now running at 30 per cent capacity to ensure there is enough space for social distancing.