Dude, where's my Porsche?
Driving
Ordinarily, I drive a 1988 Toyota Camry. It's a good car and has served me well for many years. But the old battlewagon has seen better days, and as oil leaks spring and paint gives way to rust, a man's thoughts sometimes stray. So on a trip to New York, I turned--with lust in my heart--to an Audi TT convertible roadster. It was hardly a practical vehicle. But fun for a fling? Definitely.
Ready to indulge my cheating heart was a fledgling industry of exotic-car rental agencies. These boutique businesses have sprung up around the country in the past few years, targeting travelers looking for a break from their matronly minivans or a compensatory conveyance for a miniature midlife crisis. "For some people, driving one of these cars has always been a fantasy," says Raymond Mitri, president of Excellence Luxury Car Rental in Miami. "They just want to try it once in a lifetime." The other market for high-end rentals is high-end owners. "If somebody wrecks their Mercedes, they don't want to drive a Ford Festiva around for six weeks," says Nick Popravsky, vice president of Driven Image, a three-year-old reservation consolidator that has tied together many of the small agencies in the country.
Auto exotica. Indulging these automotive dreams has been possible since the 1970s but until recently only in a few cities--mainly Los Angeles, the heart of America's obsession with the auto. Today, there are dozens of agencies from Plano, Texas, to Palo Alto, Calif., for all tastes and budgets--whether you want a zippy Mini Cooper for $100 a day or a Bentley Azure convertible for $2,500 (www.exoticcarguide.com lists many agencies).
Still, it's not all Ferraris and Bentleys. Some companies, notably industry giant Budget of Beverly Hills, Calif., are targeting the lower end of high with "fun" cars like the Mini, Ford Thunderbird, or Jeep Wrangler--not rental fleet standards, but at $100 a day not wallet-busters, either. Other agencies are small-scale operations, potentially little more than someone renting his Dodge Viper out of his garage. (If it sounds sketchy, it probably is.) At the other extreme, the luxury market has begun attracting the big fish; Hertz recently began offering Jaguars, Lincolns, and Land Rovers at a few of its larger branches in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.
Fancy cars can have fancy caveats, of course. Some don't come in automatic, so call ahead if you can't handle a clutch. Make sure your insurance covers damage to rental cars, and get additional collision insurance from the company anyway--in a crash, you could get stuck paying for "loss of use," or the full rental price for every day the car is in the shop, something most insurance companies won't cover. And make sure your credit limit is adequate. Rental agencies often put holds on credit cards ranging from a few thousand dollars to $40,000 to cover potential damages. Age restrictions and additional fees vary from agency to agency and from state to state.
The selling point for many agencies is service. "It takes Ferrari-style service to rent a Ferrari," Popravsky says. But definitions vary widely. Many larger companies include 24-hour roadside assistance in the rental price. But Village Rental, the Driven Image affiliate in Manhattan, told me I was on my own when a pothole ate one of the Audi's $130 tires, leaving me to struggle with a flimsy jack under the Manhattan Bridge aided by a friendly New York limo driver. Back at the rental office, I was gruffly charged for a new tire.
My bumpy affair with the curvy little Audi left me longing for more. Despite my flat tire, I had bus drivers staring, pedestrians waving, and the top down all the way to Connecticut--not to mention the thrill only a little car with a big engine can give. Fortunately, I live in buttoned-down Washington, D.C., one of the few markets where you can't rent a racy sports car. My Toyota will never have to know.
RENT-A-WOW!
Exotic rentals come in all shapes and prices. Some rates per day:
BENTLEY AZURE CONVERTIBLE $2,500, from Excellence Luxury Car Rental in Miami.
FERRARI SPIDER $1,800, from Budget of Beverly Hills in Los Angeles.
PORSCHE 996 $749, from Driven Image in Las Vegas.
AM GENERAL HUMMER $300, from Driven Image, Reno, Nev.
AUDI TT ROADSTER $199, from Village Rental in New York.
BMW MINI COOPER $100, from Budget of Beverly Hills.
This story appears in the November 25, 2002 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.