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On The Ground |
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 Renting
a car on business doesn’t have to mean renting something you’d never park in
your own driveway. Most major rental firms offer at least a modest representation of
luxury cars in their fleets, and several specialty rental-car companies in the U.S. and
Europe are successfully catering to the business traveler. Hertz introduced the Jaguar XJ8 and the S-TYPE vehicles into
its rental fleet earlier this year. All are equipped with Hertz’s next-generation
NeverLost Global Positioning System. Hertz also recently introduced the Ford Mark III SE
luxury conversion van in select markets. The vans sport solar privacy glass, leather
seating, sofabed, 13" color television /VCR player and a stereo/CD player. Specialty Car Rental in the San Francisco Bay Area rents everything from VW Beetles to Mercedes S430s and offers curbside airport delivery or complimentary hotel transfers for business travelers. It’s a subsidiary of National, so you get frequency points if you’re a member of National’s Emerald Aisle. Beverly Hills Rent a Car specializes in luxury cars (Rolls Royce Silver Spur, Ferrari F355 Spyder), fun cars (Suzuki Sidekick, Mazda Miata, Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer) and classics (a 1969 convertible Cadillac deVille). Similarly, Rent a Vette in Phoenix offers everything from Porsches (Carrera and Boxters) to Hummers to the Plymouth Prowler. Corvettes, too, from late models to a pristine ’69 classic. If you don’t feel like dropping $299 a day for the Jaguar XKE, you can always try the Camaro convertible for a more down-to-earth $89. In Germany and Austria, Sixt rents top of the line Mercedes and Audi auto-mobiles. In Ireland, Dan Dooley Rent a Car rents Mercedes, BMWs, Volvos, Saabs and Jaguars, mostly to a corporate clientele that “seldom asks how much,” according to Patrick Dooley, president of the company. Writer: Jill Molyneaux is a business travel specialist and former editor-in-chief of Corporate Travel magazine. Design: Sundberg & Associates Inc Illustration: Frank Frisari Produced by: Meigs Media, Ltd., Millbrook, NY, e-mail: jonmeigs@earthlink.net Web Conversion by: WebTeck LLC |
