Just got me thinking......
If you lived in a convenient town/city centre spot - somewhere from where it was easier to walk/cycle/bus/train it to work each day, walk to the local Tesco Metro/Sainsbury's Local etc for shopping, and generally all the day to day stuff you needed was on your doorstep, but you still had a parking space for your car as you liked to keep it for the odd weekend away etc etc, and didn't go the "no car, I'll hire when I need a car" route due to hire companies only having low to mid range bland s**te on offer (i.e. 1.2 Corsas, 1.8 vectra LS, etc etc), what sort of cars would you want to see on a hire company's books before you'd actually take the step of ditching the car?
My list would largely contain stuff I've owned, but not exclusively, and a lot of stuff I've owned wouldn't be on there. It'd generally consist of old-ish but relatively unique stuff (10-25 years old) that'd probably cost around £1k-£3k to buy, and newer stuff on a similar sort of budget to a nearly-new Mondeo, but more interesting than a nearly new Mondeo.
Obviously for a hire company to run older stuff like this they'd have to buy bloody good examples to start with, and have enough cars to be able to justify a full time mechanic or two to be able to do most of the general servicing/repair work on them to keep down costs. And they'd need to buy stuff that's generally *relatively* trouble-free. And breakdown cover would be a must!
Here's a few for starters:
Mk2 Golf GTi (8v and 16v) Citroen BX GTi (again, 8 and 16v variants) Carlton GSi 24v / Senator 24v / Carlton Diamond Estate 24v Astra GTE 16v (I wouldn't, but Vauxhalls of that era are fairly bombproof mechanically, and plenty would). Mk1 Astra GTE Mk1 XR2 (with the old 1600 OHV engine). Mk3 XR3i (maybe RS1600i, maybe S1 RS Turbo) Some Sierras - never been my "special subject" so maybe PeteM could throw in a suggestion or two. Possibly avoid uber-rare stuff like Cosworths - I'm thinking more common production models, just the decent top-of-the-range (ish) stuff. Fish-face Scorpio Ultima 2.9 24v Cossie job Citroen XM V6 Exclusive Xantia Activa (liability? maybe....) Pug 205 GTIs (1.6 and 1.9) Pug 405 Mi16 Lexus LS400 Some nice old BMWs - late E32 740i (maybe not 750i as they really are seriously juicy - people with that much money for fuel would be able to afford to hire something more exotic) - E34 M5, maybe E28 M5 for people into more retro stuff.
More modern stuff? Someone who's looked at/driven more than I have (very little) might be in a better place to judge. The general theory would be no diesels unless they're something particularly special - someone hiring a car for a one-off trip probably won't be stupidly concerned that the 5-6 trips per year they might do in a car might cost them an extra 20-30 quid due to being petrol-powered instead of diesel.
Thoughts, anyone?