You Can Now Rent the 650-Horsepower Chevrolet Corvette Z06 from Hertz
This can only end well, we imagine.
Long before the modern wave of high-end rental car companies, long before you could book a stranger's sweet ride through apps like Turo and DriveShare, there was good old Hertz and its fleet of special 1966 Shelby Mustang GT350-H "Rent-a-Racers." These hi-po pony cars remain a high-water mark for the airport rental world, but the company is finally following up with a worthy successor in the form of the 650-horsepower Chevrolet Corvette Z06, now available to spice up your next vacation in several major metro areas as Hertz celebrates its 100th anniversary.
If you feel like any trip isn't complete without taking your life into your own hands, Hertz will be glad to rent you the wild Corvette Z06 in Boston, New York City, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Orlando, Miami, Tampa, Dallas, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. The cars will all sport a racy black and yellow paint job plus special edition badging to commemorate their presumably short lives as rental properties.
The amount of power found in the 6.2-liter V8 of the Z06—650 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque to be exact—is plenty to get an inexperienced driver into legal or mortal trouble. Should customers survive their first full-throttle experience, they'll get to enjoy a 10-speaker Bose sound system and an infotainment unit featuring Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Don't expect to be able to row your own, though; every car will come with the eight-speed automatic transmission instead of the seven-speed manual.
That's a shame, but it's also entirely unsurprising. The cost and terms of renting this slab of Americana vary from city to city, with a single day in Los Angeles starting at $199 but ending up around $360 when you factor in taxes, fees, and the highly-recommended damage waiver. You're also limited to just 75 miles per day with this beast.