“We are only limited by our imagination” may not be an appropriate adage for the era of a novel coronavirus, catastrophic fires and hysterical politics, but it does hold true in at least one domain: the dream car.
What is the definition of a dream car? A normal person would say it’s a four-wheeled fantasy that imprints on you when you’re young — via movies like Back to the Future or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — with the promise that if you work hard enough, one day you could find a DeLorean DMC-12 or a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California in your driveway under a big red bow. But that, as it turns out, includes one crucial misconception.
Remember when Cameron Frye tells Ferris how his father loves his Ferrari more than life itself? What does 23-year-old-playing-18 Matthew Broderick retort with? “A man with priorities so far out whack doesn’t deserve such a fine automobile,” he says before taking the Prancing Horse out for a day of joyriding. Similarly, you don’t need to take out a second mortgage to buy your dream car only to encase it in glass and shine it with diapers. All you need is a day off and a little thing called DriveShare.
DriveShare is a painless classic-car rental marketplace where you can check out anything from a Jaguar E-Type to a vintage Bronco for anywhere from a few hours to an extra-long weekend — think of it like Airbnb for dream machines, but doing much better during the pandemic than that exemplar of peer-to-peer businesses.
“As you can imagine, late March and April were pretty much dead. Nobody was renting cars on the platform at that point,” Steve Haas, senior manager of operations for DriveShare, tells InsideHook. “Since then, though, we’ve seen a rise in our business. Actually, August was the best month ever for DriveShare.”
That’s no surprise when you look at how people have been coping with the pandemic. According to a survey conducted by Researchscape in May, about three in four Americans “reported using their car as a mental health escape while in quarantine.” (We beat them to that by over two months, but who’s counting.) As COVID-19 continues to keep traditional entertainment options out of reach — first the summer festival season, now the fall arts smorgasbord — our cars will continue to draw us out of our homes for joyrides, impromptu parades and maybe even a drive-in or two. But if the sides of your Toyota Highlander are starting to close in just like the walls of your house did back in May, a classic car may be just the cure you’re looking for.
“People are renting cars for a drive with the family or an anniversary night out,” Haas says. “We got a bunch of rentals in June for high school graduations … some cities went to drive-through parades.” And the classic convertibles those kids rented might just be repurposed for socially distant homecoming parades this fall.
While DriveShare has been around for years and we’ve previously written about it, the service is finally at a place where there are enough cars to satisfy antsy drivers throughout the U.S. Hagerty, the ever-growing classic car resource that cut its teeth with insurance, bought the company and relaunched it under its current name back in 2017. After starting with about 250 cars and just a few cities (Los Angeles, Cape Cod) on the platform, DriveShare now boasts more than 5,300 vehicles available in cities big and small, coastal and inland.
Normally, you’d be a fool not to worry about taking someone else’s pride and joy for a spin, but because it’s Hagerty, all the normal, justified classic-car apprehension is for naught. Insurance? Included. Thorough vetting process? Done. Roadside assistance for when, like Jerry Seinfeld in seemingly every other episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, you inevitably break down? It’s taken care of.
Still, where you’re located will determine the variety of cars at your disposal. Personally, Haas has driven a DeLorean, Ferrari 308 GTS like the one from Magnum, P.I. and replica of KITT from Knight Rider, all of which have been listed on DriveShare (though he says the owner of the latter recently sold the car). In fact, Haas is such a true-blue company man that he even lists his own cars on the platform, including a Nissan Figaro that someone recently rented as an accessory to a marriage proposal.
“It’s an excuse to go buy more cars,” Haas says, half jokingly.
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In all seriousness, besides being a seamless tool for escapism, pandemic or not, DriveShare has also proved its salt in the classic-car-buying department.
“Say you’ve always dreamt of owning a [Porsche] 911, we’ve actually had two instances I know of where people have come on the platform, rented an ‘80s Carrera and they ended up buying one,” Haas explains. “We’ve also had situations where people rent a car they’ve always liked, but found it just wasn’t comfortable, they didn’t fit. That happened with a Triumph TR6 last year where somebody always wanted one, he rented one for a day and he found, ‘No, it just doesn’t fit me, I’m too tall for the car.’ It’s a great way to get into the hobby without making that huge commitment up front of buying a car.”
We’re not going to make a decision about whether or not to buy your dream car for you. But renting someone else’s sports car or VW Bus or replica movie car for a long weekend of unwinding on winding roads is something we feel comfortable recommending to just about anyone, and you don’t even need to worry about rolling back the odometer when you’re done.
Interested in renting a car? DriveShare is offering an exclusive discount to InsideHook readers: enter code InsideHook10 for 10 percent off a rental.
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