wanting to do a road trip next year in america, west coast.

need to hire a car but want something memorably fun and fast

any tips and good places to use? hertz has a corvette convertible for £700 for a week which sounds too good to be true when a boxster is 2k?

thanks

Is it a corvette convertible or a chevrolet convertible?

Can't give you a tip for what car to hire but I was there a couple of years ago driving from east coast to west coast and after much research found Hertz to be the most competitive. I hired a Mitsubishi Eclipse purely because the journey was 2500+ miles and it was pretty frugal (in USA terms) and had a soft roof. If I could have had any car I would have gone for either a Dodge Viper or Ford Mustang. Maybe next time...

I saw under the impression that it's cheaper to get one at the airport, as the different companies will compete for the sale.

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Originally posted by chrism
Is it a corvette convertible or a chevrolet convertible?

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Originally posted by beaver34

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Originally posted by chrism
Is it a corvette convertible or a chevrolet convertible?

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on the right on here

http://www.hertz.co.uk/rentacar/vehicleguide/index.jsp?targetPage=vehicleGuideHomeView.jsp&countryCode=US&category=Adrenaline%20Collection

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Originally posted by chrism

quote:

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Originally posted by beaver34

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Originally posted by chrism
Is it a corvette convertible or a chevrolet convertible?

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on the right on here

http://www.hertz.co.uk/rentacar/vehicleguide/index.jsp?targetPage=vehicleGuideHomeView.jsp&countryCode=US&category=Adrenaline%20Collection

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Yeah was having a look, you can get a Chevy Camaro SS for £420 or a mustang for similar.

Actually scratch that get the Dodge Challenger.

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Hi

I have done the West Coast a few times. San Fran, LA and San Diego and bits in between. Cars have incl the Hertz Shelby Mustang and a Camaro.

Hertz Fun Collection was what I went for each time.

I have always booked prior to going. If you go for whatever the top model is in the Fun Collection you do get very well looked after by Hertz when you arrive. No queues just walked to your car. Whatever you book you can always swap and change based on what they have available there. So you can see what takes your fancy just to make sure you get what you want.

The Shelby was great for the soft top but the hard top Camaro was a good drive too.

Many will tell you what a waste of money it is when you can hire cars much cheaper in the US but for me it was a big part of my holiday - and worth every cent.

If you get the chance go to Laguna Seca race circuit. Well worth seeing the corkscrew drop for real. Just gutted you don't get the chance to go out on track :-)

You can take your own SatNav but the Hertz Satnav was a great option but again they will charge for this.

Watch out for the one way drop off fee from Hertz (approx. USD150). I never got round this but as with the rest of the expense I simply wrote it off in my mind as what I had to spend to get what I wanted for my holiday.

Any specific questions send me U2U.

Have a great holiday.

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I saw under the impression that it's cheaper to get one at the airport, as the different companies will compete for the sale.

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Some of the muscle cars on offer from the mainstream companies have rather pathetic engines. 3L v6 if I remember right in a challenger.

Some previous discussion

here

Cheers

Fred W B








[Edited on 12/8/13 by Fred W B]

We hired a Mustang GT (415 BHP) in Phoenix from the Hertz fun collection, it cost hardly any more than a Mondeo and was ace fun. Just keep searching the website and sometimes crazy low prices pop up for certain cars in certain places.

Also we noticed that weekday hire was dirt cheap for the supercars so if you could do the trip Monday-Friday you would save a shed load of money.

Make sure it's the specific car though and not listed as 'or similar' or you could end up with a 3L V6 Sebring....

Yes, check away from the Airport and probably Hertz is the only one to offer you fun cars except for the exotic car rental places which are not really meant for long drives.

Where do you intend to go? I'm just outside Fort Worth, Texas. If you are headed near that direction give me a call and I'll show you around.

we booked a sebring convertible on Kauai (hawaiin island) and spotted a mustang convertible parked up, and asked if we could have that instead. "No problem" worth getting something fun, as its definately one of the things we both remember about that holiday.


though i must confess having only ever had kit car convertibles i didnt want to take the roof off until i'd had a chance to read the manual to see how to do it, thinking 'poles to dissasemble, velro to attach, special hidden clips etc' to which my wife said, "isnt it that big button on the dashboard?"

it turns out that technology has moved on a bit since i started buying kit cars.

I hired a Dodge Viper in Vegas a few years back as per my post HERE. Only had it for an hour for the bargain price of around £100 including insurance, was a good laugh though and well worth it. And as luck would have it I took it back and went straight into the next casino and won over $150 off a 25c bet so more or less paid for it

All these cars are as cheap as chips in the US, unlike a Boxter so it's no wonder the rental is less

That said, it's pointless hiring a fast car unless you just wanna chill in it. I got pulled doing 5mph over the limit at night in the middle of the corn fields in the middle of nowhere in Minnesota.

That said, they pointed out they couldn't do anything with me other than issue a warning.