The “Rent-A-Racer” Is Back. It’s Still A Terrible Idea Which Is Why We Love It.

Many years ago, Hertz and Ford teamed up for the most colossal of poor ideas: renting a Shelby Mustang. Why poor? Because people treat rental cars the same way they treat hotel rooms. At least Hertz doesn’t need a black light to know what’s been going on in there.

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For those that don’t know the backstory, 50 years ago Hertz and Ford has a few beers and said let’s offer people a way to rent a Mustang. Ford said that’s cool, but let’s give them the option to rent a GT350. Thus, the Shelby GT350-H was born. They did it again in 2006 for the 40th anniversary and now we has another, called the GT-H, for the 50th anniversary. And it was a horrible decision then and it’s a horrible decision now because of the aforementioned way people treat rentals cars like crap. But this was actually a supremely GOOD idea in our books.

Giving the general public access to a 2-door pony car with 420 HP on tap is awesome. It takes balls to do something like that. Especially one that has “a cat-back performance exhaust for that throaty sound” and “the Ford Racing Handling Pack, including special-tuned dampers, lowering springs, sway bars and a staggered wheel kit.” On a damn rental car! Awesome. So awesome. This isn’t even mentioning the 19 inch wheels and high performance Michelin rubber that we’re guessing comes in Pilot Super Sport form. There’s even a vented hood, carbon fiber front splitter and rear spoiler. Again, and we can’t stress this enough, to rent. To anyone.

It’s the same as if BMW were to go to Eurocar and say, “Here’s an M4 people can rent. Go nuts.” That’s absurd and we love that 1) Because BMW would never do that and 2) It’s a huge liability. So we comment both Ford and Hertz for continue this tradition of ridiculousness because it’s the exact same decision we’d make.

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