Fellow car enthusiasts! I have a question for you!

As some of us know, renting a manual car in the USA is frankly near impossible. Only places I've personally seen it are 1) Exotics rentals with Vipers and Elises, or 2) extremely small places that have horrible reviews on Yelp for customer service and fraud. So:

When you go to a beautiful destination in the US (eg: Southern California, a Florida coastline, Rocky Mountains) and have to get a rental car, will you be willing to:

• Pay 20%-35% more to rent a fun manual car (eg: S2000, Miata, Mini Cooper, Mustang GT) versus comparable-in-price automatic appliances in the Enterprise and Hertz lots?
• Rent if the rental lot is a reasonable distance (15 min) outside the airport (given free shuttle service to the lot)?
  
  

 

I would pay extra for sure.

Do not have to be exotics either, could be modest cars like 370z, new stang gt, m3, m4, vette etc.

Shuttle would be nice, but not mandatory.

 

Just go to Europe, where you have to request an automatic

 

I'd pay extra if it was a good driving area. If it was somewhere like vegas I'd probably go with a auto or semi-auto gearbox. Sadly, I think I would be in the minority. Furthermore, the cost of frequent clutch replacements because of non-drivers renting a high power, manual sports car would be expensive.

 

Renting a car is my chance to drive normal cars so I don't really mind it, its kind of fun to check out non-sports cars. Its the only chance I get to drive automatic...

 

I wonder how long clutches in MT rentals would last and how they'd work when I got one.

How many people would use these to train their Kid/spouse on a stick before they let them drive the S2000?

 

Got a 6MT Dodge Challenger R/T when I was in Utah and took it out on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Cost us $240/day, at the airport. Business trip, so didn't matter but I'd never pay that for a personal vehicle to rent (especially a Challenger).

 

https://relayrides.com/

Can rent whatever you want, Ive never used but seems like a good idea if you want to try something different.

 

Nope. But for many of those destinations I would drive my own car there.

 

The prices vary so much for rental cars I doubt you could compete at just 20-35% over what hertz,dollar,thrifty,etc.. You can get a mid-full size car any where from 15-40$/day. Even if You kept your prices at a constant $50/day you would probably would not turn a profit. I would imagine maintenance and insurance is going to be much higher on performance oriented cars. Your best bet would probably be to go for hot hatches and miatas. I have heard that the focus and fiesta ST are really fun to drive. You also have the golf GTI but it may be expensive to maintain.