New Trend: Want to Look Rich and Successful? Do Like Others, Rent a High-End Luxury Car
The economy may be stalling, but luxury car rentals are accelerating—thanks to executives, realtors and ordinary folks who want to project an image of success.
Take the executive from a start-up company seeking venture capital money. Driving up in a beat up, four-year-old Toyota would send a bad message. So to attend a meeting at the golf and country club, that person may rent an S-Class Mercedes or BMW.
Call it chicanery or smart business sense, but a growing number of people in the business world are renting high-end automobiles to impress, according to PremierLuxuryRental.com, a high-end automobile and luxury home rental company serving Philadelphia and its surrounding states.
“You can look like a million bucks even when you’re making 50K,” says Mark McNeil, president of PremierLuxuryRental.com.
He says there are those customers renting luxury cars out of necessity.
McNeil recalls a realtor who asked for a Cadillac Escalade because her pro basketball player prospect couldn’t fit into her older Honda. Plus, she couldn’t very well show a million-dollar home in a $10,000 Accord. What would he think?
“Renting a luxury car is common and most often it’s the average man or woman doing it,” says McNeil. “I would say 70% of the time it’s making an impression, 30% is for need.”
It used to be that the only people who rented a Bentley, Jaguar, Mercedes, Lamborghini or Ferrari were the very wealthy. Not anymore.
“We still get many affluent clients and business people who rent out of necessity or for the fun of it. But the bulk of our business is the folks with modest incomes who simply want to look successful.”
jen on June 18th 2008 in Exotic Car Rental