The Rise of the Rent-a-Porsche

If you really want to upgrade your next trip, forget first class and try out a teched-out Audi or a Bentley. WSJ Middle Seat columnist Scott McCartney joins Lunch Break with a look at options and costs for luxury car rentals. Photo: Michal Czerwonka for The Wall Street Journal .

Forget first class, early boarding and hotel suites. If you really want to upgrade your next trip, get a Ferrari or a Bentley, try out a teched-out Audi or turn heads when you pull up to your destination in a Porsche.

Luxury-car rentals are rapidly growing, and for some, you don't have to spend all that much more than you would for a full-size sedan. The nation's largest car-rental firm, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, which usually focuses its business on the lower end of the market, has expanded its "Exotic Car Collection" to 13 locations in six states, recently adding Houston and Naples, Fla. Hertz Corp., the second-largest, says rentals from its luxury-vehicle collection grew 15% between 2011 and 2012.

And last month, a startup company called Silvercar began renting nothing but silver Audi A4s with customized technology at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Current prices start at only $55 a day.

Travis Scoggin, an Austin, Texas, advertising executive, decided to try Silvercar on a trip to see a client in the Dallas area in mid-January. He says the luxury Audi sedan was fun to drive and connected seamlessly with his iPhone, allowing him to access his music library and get directions from digital assistant Siri through the car's audio system.

"When you're getting ready for a big meeting, you rev yourself up in the head. You want to look nice, feel nice and the car helped amplify that," said Mr. Scoggin.

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Close Michal Czerwonka for The Wall Street Journal

Enterprise Rent-a-Car says its 'Exotic Car Collection' at Los Angeles International Airport, visible from the rental-counter lobby, inspires on-the-spot rental upgrades.

Enterprise Vice President Steve Short said exotic cars draw a diverse customer base, ranging from insurance companies and car dealerships that need customer loaners to movie studios that want fantasy vehicles for filming. Some travelers are test-driving vehicles they are thinking of purchasing. Others simply want to drive what they have at home.

Even customers who typically rent a budget-mobile will sometimes splurge for a birthday or anniversary trip�or to impress a client, a date or classmates at reunions. Spending $1,000 for a Porsche may satisfy a bucket-list fantasy.

"They see a Jaguar for $225 and they'd rather drive that than the Camry,'' said Adam Belsky, Enterprise's group sales and marketing manager for the Exotic Car Collection in Los Angeles.

Hertz recently added the Porsche Panamera to its fleet in some locations. Not surprisingly, rental companies typically focus their luxury offerings in high-end markets like Southern California and South Florida. Boxster and Cayenne models are coming soon. "We brought in some higher-end Mercedes and the Panameras and found they rent really well," said spokesman Richard Broome. Hertz lets customers reserve its "premium" models specifically, and not as one of a broader class of cars�usually the case with average rentals, where availability determines what someone will drive away in.

Rental prices can run the gamut from under $100 to almost $1,000 a day. Average rental rate on a Mercedes GL450 7-passenger sport utility at Hertz is $170 daily, while the Porsche Panamera averages $340. At LAX, Enterprise rents Mercedes vehicles for $150 to $250 a day, and sometimes has specials knocking that price lower, Mr. Belsky said. (Cars usually stay rented 45% to 50% of the time.) A Panamera fetches $250 to $350.

And because fancy cars don't rent with the same frequency as mid-market ones, travelers can often find deals online, both with established agencies and lesser-known firms seeking a foothold in the market. Sixt Rent a Car, a European agency now rolling out operations in the U.S., is currently listing a deal in its new Seattle-Tacoma International Airport location on a Mercedes C-Class sedan for $50 a day.

Newcomer Silvercar is offering an introductory special for its Audi A4s during February at $75 a day during the week and $55 a day on weekends. The company says it tries to price its cars competitively with full-size nonluxury cars, meaning those introductory rates will likely go up. The rate for a Chevrolet Malibu at Hertz or Chevrolet Impala at Avis, both rated "full size,'' at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, is listed about $130 a day next Monday.

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Enterprise added exotic cars at Los Angeles International Airport one year ago. Any customer who gets off the shuttle bus comes into a lobby to rent�and sees the large doorways to the Exotic Car showroom. The curious wander in and sometimes upgrade. "I don't think people realize they can rent this," said Mr. Belsky. Muscle cars are popular. And the 30 or so Cadillac Escalades are all rented for delivering stars to the Academy Awards ceremony.

His top-of-the-line car is a $250,000 Bentley GTC convertible that rents for $800 to $900 a day. An Infinity FX37 rents for $160 to $180 a day. The most popular: the Range Rover Sport, a car with a starting sticker price of $61,500 that rents for $250 to $300 a day.

Mr. Belsky orders all the luxury cars for Enterprise in Southern California and Las Vegas, sometimes handpicking Porsches at the dealer. Among his requirements: always automatic transmissions, usually dark colors and sometimes fancy wheels and technology. After 12 to 18 months, or about 25,000 miles, the cars are sold.

Sometimes the hoops for luxury-car rentals can be higher than those for an average vehicle. Enterprise does a special insurance check to make sure a customer's policy transfers over, though in some cases credit cards also provide rental-car insurance. The company also takes a higher deposit for luxury rentals�sometimes $1,000 to $2,000 held on a customer's credit card. The deposit for the convertible Bentley: $10,000.

Fred Hall goes to Southern California often for business and vacation. About a year ago, the Oklahoma City-based private-equity investment manager heard about Enterprise's luxury car service and got hooked.

When his three children are with him, he gets a Cadillac Escalade. When it is just him and his wife, they go for an Audi convertible or full-size Mercedes. "In California, the convertible factor weighs in heavily,'' said Mr. Hall.

Silvercar figured rental cars often failed to match what travelers had in their own garage, and the Audi A4 might be more compatible to the luxury-minded consumer. "Business travelers who have nice cars at home and make over $100,000 a year want to drive nice cars," said Silvercar Chairman Bill Diffenderffer, a former airline executive.

He thinks the luxury car-rental market should model other parts of the travel industry. "We've seen stratification in hotels. We've seen it in airlines with brands like Virgin America. But we haven't seen it in car rentals yet," said Mr. Diffenderffer.

The Audi A4 was chosen in part because it has technology that can work with Silvercar-designed systems. Using a Silvercar app on a smartphone, a renter simply scans the QR code on any car in the lot he or she wants. Once a rental reservation is verified, the car, with a key inside, automatically unlocks and the renter can drive away, without having to wait in line or interact with an agent.

When the car returns to the lot, it transmits to Silvercar not only the time it was returned but also the mileage, tolls and fuel used, down to the hundredth of a liter. Within minutes, a receipt is emailed to the renter. The idea, said Silvercar Chief Executive Luke Schneider, who was chief technology officer at Zipcar, is to use technology to eliminate lines and make it fast and simple to drive off and return without hassle. "People want consistency," he said.

In the future, personal information like seat position, music settings and temperature preferences will be stored in a renter's profile and uploaded to any car the customer rents,'' Mr. Schneider said.

Write to Scott McCartney at middleseat@wsj.com