First-Time Exotic Car Rental: What Actually Happens From Inquiry to Handoff

Renting an exotic car for the first time is a 5 step process. You inquire, we confirm the car and check your insurance, you sign and pay, we hand you the keys, and you bring it back. The whole thing usually takes a day or 2 from first message to delivery. Here's what actually happens at each step, because most of the anxiety about renting one of these cars comes from not knowing.

Step 1. You send an inquiry

You pick a car on the site and send an inquiry with your dates and where you want it delivered. That inquiry goes straight into our booking system. The first thing we do is check whether that exact car is available on your dates.

Here's something nobody in this industry will tell you. Companies advertise cars that may not be available so they can at least get the lead. Bait and switch is common. I'm telling you so you know what to watch for. If a company comes back with a different car than the one you asked about, ask why. Sometimes the answer is legitimate, the car is booked or in service. Sometimes the car was never there.

Step 2. We check your insurance

Before you pay, sign, or touch the car, you send us your driver's license and your proof of insurance. Then we call your insurance company with an agent on a recorded line. We're confirming that your policy extends comprehensive and collision coverage to a vehicle that isn't on your declarations page. That's called non-owner vehicle coverage, and it's either in your policy or it isn't.

This is the step first-timers don't expect. Do yourself a favor and call your carrier before you inquire. Ask whether your policy covers a rental vehicle with no cap on the car's value. If the answer is yes, everything after this is easy.

Step 3. Contract, invoice, deposit

Once the car is confirmed and the insurance checks out, you sign the rental contract, pay the invoice, and we place a hold on your card for the security deposit. Deposits in our fleet are $1,000 to $2,000 on most cars and $5,000 on the Aventadors. The hold comes off after the car comes back in the condition it left.

Step 4. The handoff

We deliver the car to you, your home, your hotel, or your event. At the handoff we document the car as it went out. We record the odometer and photograph any pre-existing damage. We always shoot the front bumper, the rear diffuser, the windshield, and the body panels, because those are what get damaged on a rental. We also take a photo of you holding your license in front of the car with the plate visible. Insurance companies often require that photo to prove we handed the car to the person who signed the contract.

Take your own photos too. It protects you the same way it protects us.

Then we walk you through the car. Where the drive modes are, how the nose lift works if it has one, what the car does at low speed that yours doesn't. Ask everything. Nobody's judging you for not knowing where the start button is on a McLaren.

Step 5. Driving it and bringing it back

Start in the softest mode. Get used to the throttle and the brakes before you go looking for the other modes. These cars are fine at normal speed. You don't have to push a Huracan to enjoy a Huracan, and the sound at 40 mph on PCH is most of the point anyway.

Watch the nose. Mid-engine cars sit low, so take driveways and speed bumps at an angle. That front splitter is the most common damage we see, and it's not cheap.

Bring it back at the agreed time with the same fuel it left with. We do the same inspection we did at handoff, compare the photos, and release the deposit. That usually clears in 3 to 5 business days depending on your bank.

That's the whole process. The only part that trips people up is the insurance, and one phone call before you inquire fixes that.