Two Curbs Decide the Best Car for a Night Out in LA

The best car for a night out in LA has to work twice, once at the valet stand at 10 and again at the curb at 2. In our fleet that's the black Lamborghini Urus at $995 a day. It seats five, stays quiet until you ask it not to, and its orange cabin lights up the second a door opens. Three other cars each win a narrower version of the same night.

What a night out asks of a car

A night out in Los Angeles is never a single drive. It's a pickup, a dinner, a second stop, and a ride home. There are usually more people in the car at the end than at the start. So the car gets judged four times, and the valet only sees one of them.

Picture the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood on a Saturday. It's 1.6 miles of Sunset Boulevard. After dark the valet stands along it fill with cars people rented to be seen in. Pulling up is the easy part, since anything with a Lamborghini badge gets the long look and the phone out.

The harder part is the hour after. Your friends want a ride to the next spot in Beverly Hills, 2 miles south. The car you picked has two seats. Or the plan moves to a game night in Downtown Los Angeles. There you arrive into the skyline off the 110, and the car has to carry the whole group. The right car holds the look at the first stop and still makes sense at the last one.

The best car for a night out in LA is the Urus

The Urus is the only Lamborghini we rent that seats five. The black one with the orange cabin is the one to book for a night. Of the five base Urus we run, it's the only one with an orange interior. Closed up under the lights at a valet stand, it reads as a dark, angular shape. Open a door and the orange leather becomes the whole picture.

Under the hood is a 4.0 liter twin turbo V8 making 641 horsepower. Sixty comes in 3.6 seconds, which is quicker than most sports cars, from a seat you climb up into. In Strada, its quiet mode, cylinder deactivation keeps the engine calm and unbothered in stop-and-go traffic. So the crawl down the Strip at 11 doesn't sound like you're trying too hard.

Flip the tamburo lever, the Urus drive mode selector, over to Sport and the exhaust valves open. The car that was quiet a block ago isn't quiet anymore. The four people riding with you feel the seats brace against them. That switch is the reason this car fits a night out better than anything else we run. It can be polite at the door and loud on the way out.

It rents for $995 a day with a $1,000 security deposit. The deposit is a hold on your card, not a charge. It's released when the car comes back in the condition it left. Every day includes 100 miles, and extra miles on this car run $5 each. A night spent between the Strip and Beverly Hills uses a small slice of that.

The Cullinan when someone else should drive

The Rolls Royce Cullinan is the car for a night where the back seat matters more than the front. Ours in black runs $1,495 a day, and from the outside it looks severe and anonymous. Then a coach door, a rear door hinged at the back, swings open onto a light blue and white cabin. Nobody predicts that from the curb, and that gap between the outside and the inside is the whole arrival.

The rear seats sit higher than the front on purpose, a layout Rolls Royce calls Pavilion Seating. The 6.75 liter twin turbo V12 makes 563 horsepower and is almost silent at cruise. Night vision comes standard, which is a detail you'll only notice after midnight, on a dark street with the cabin lamps down.

Chauffeur service is available on request on the Rolls Royces. That matters on a night out more than anywhere else. If there's drinking, there's a chauffeur or a sober driver for the ride home. That's our rule on every car. The Cullinan is the easiest car in the fleet to follow it in, because the best seat in it isn't the driver's.

A club car rental for two

If it's just you and one other person, the black Lamborghini Huracan Spyder at $1,195 a day is the sharper pick. It's a two seat convertible with a 5.2 liter V10 that makes 602 horsepower without turbos. The engine pulls all the way to 8,500 rpm. In Strada it's quiet enough to hand to a valet without a scene. In Corsa, its sharpest mode, the muffling comes off.

This is a car built for after dark. With the roof down, the red cabin becomes a band of color running through the middle of a black car. Under the lit front of a restaurant in Hollywood, that's the frame. At noon the same car flattens into a silhouette, and that's why our white Spyder is the daytime booking.

It also carries a $4 per mile rate, lower than the white Spyder's $5. A night that turns into a long drive costs less on this one. The honest trade is the seat count, because two seats means the plan can't grow. When your friends ask for a ride to the second stop, the Huracan says no for you.

The G63 as a nightlife car rental under $700

The Mercedes-Benz G63, the AMG version of the G-Wagon, is the value answer, and it gives up less than the price suggests. Our black G63 with a black and red cabin rents for $695 a day. It seats five, makes 577 horsepower from a 4.0 liter twin turbo V8, and does sixty in 4.4 seconds. The exhaust exits through side pipes, so the sound reaches the curb a second before you do.

The details are what people notice standing next to it. The doors shut with a mechanical thunk Mercedes kept on purpose and never changed. There's a grab handle in front of the passenger seat because the first G was built as a military vehicle. Pull up in front of a hotel in Santa Monica in this one and the square shape is recognizable from a block away.

It also has the lowest per mile rate of any G63 we run, $3 over the included 100. If the night starts at the beach and ends across town, the G63 won't punish the extra miles. It's the car we'd point a group of five toward when the budget is going to the table, not the curb.

Who drives home, and where the car sleeps

The ride home is the part nobody plans. Anyone who will drive has to be listed as an additional driver, a second person named on the rental contract, before the rental starts. They pass the same license and insurance check you did, and we call their insurance company too. So if a friend is taking the wheel of the Urus at 1, sort it out when you book.

When the night's over, the car sleeps in a valet garage or a hotel garage, never on the street. The keys stay with you. We deliver to hotels, homes, and venues across Los Angeles. The car can be waiting where the night starts, instead of you waiting on it. To rent any of these four you'll need to be 18 or older. You'll also need a valid license and full coverage insurance in your own name.

A night out gets judged at the curb for about ten seconds and lived in for the rest of the night. Book the car for the rest of the night, and the ten seconds come out right anyway.