Car rentals in Europe

I am just curious if anyone has had any experience with car rentals in Europe and what companies to use. What do I need to have as far as licensing and insurance?

I will even go a step further and say that I am wanting to rent a Porsche for a week or weekend. I am going to be in the position this summer to go to Europe and really want to drive on the 'Ring and the Germany Autobahn System. While the Autobahn shouldn't be an issue, obviously car rental companies are not impressed with people bringing their cars on the Nurburgring. This is kind of a bucket list thing and I want to see if anyone has done anything like this and has some advice or pointers to some companies. I am not going to say money is no object because that is stupid and pretentious, but I am prepared to make this happen if a job that I am trying to secure goes through, even if it means spending thousands of dollars doing so.

I have found these places that look interesting:

Nurburgring race car rentals also General use

Any advice?

I reserved a Panda in Rome and ended up with a Peugeot 3008. They just wanted to see my CA driver's license and didn't ask for insurance. Not really any different than renting a car in the states. I think they gave me the Peugeot because it was an automatic and the Italians were refusing to drive it. It did have a horrible manu-matic trans but got decent mileage.

I'm pretty sure it was Europcar or something similar.

I always used sixt car rentals when I traveled to Germany for work,. They seemed to have the best rates a few years ago (and I recall they did have some sporty cars). I was happy with my merc diesel wagon (6 speed, twin turbo, great Liter/100 Km).

I doubt any street rental car will let you legally go on the track, I'd rent a touring car for getting around & rent a ring car if I was going there.

KJ

rentaracer.de is the popular one - you'll see a bunch of their cars on the track when you go. i went to the ring in 2007, and we rented from SixT (a regular rental place there like hertz, etc)....it's explicit that they dont want their cars on the ring - people do it anyway, and we got away with it. wasnt that hard. but one of the days at the ring, SixT was there, with a van - checking cars to see if anyone was using their cars on the ring. when the van showed up, the word got out quickly enough, and we werent on the track, so we stayed put in the parking lot for a while till they left =)

go through lovejoy's nurburgring site, he pretty much has the whole deal covered, everything you could ask is answered there - http://nurburgring.org.uk/

i also recommend staying at Sliders, a neat lil B&B near the track. awesome place to stay, and always filled with car and bike guys.

Kendall_Jones wrote: I always used sixt car rentals when I traveled to Germany for work,. They seemed to have the best rates a few years ago (and I recall they did have some sporty cars). I was happy with my merc diesel wagon (6 speed, twin turbo, great Liter/100 Km). I doubt any street rental car will let you legally go on the track, I'd rent a touring car for getting around & rent a ring car if I was going there. KJ

Since I posted this up I thought about just renting a beater to get around in and save the money for more track time. In my mind it seemed cool to rent a 911 to casually drive around in but the chances something may happen to it are greater around town than renting a proper track car.

ohms wrote: rentaracer.de is the popular one - you'll see a bunch of their cars on the track when you go. i went to the ring in 2007, and we rented from SixT (a regular rental place there like hertz, etc)....it's explicit that they dont want their cars on the ring - people do it anyway, and we got away with it. wasnt that hard. but one of the days at the ring, SixT was there, with a van - checking cars to see if anyone was using their cars on the ring. when the van showed up, the word got out quickly enough, and we werent on the track, so we stayed put in the parking lot for a while till they left =) go through lovejoy's nurburgring site, he pretty much has the whole deal covered, everything you could ask is answered there - http://nurburgring.org.uk/ i also recommend staying at Sliders, a neat lil B&B near the track. awesome place to stay, and always filled with car and bike guys.

Yeah, I just don't want to push my luck bringing a rental on there. The track rental appears to come with instructor time too. That is something I would like to have.

Thanks for the info on the B&B, thats my kinda speed.

That link is VERY informative.

In reply to Anti-stance: one more for you, i had to look for the link first though - http://bridgetogantry.com/2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=328&Itemid=300115

the blog bridgetogantry - when i went on my trip, the guy who runs the bridgetogantry blog was there with crew from a bike magazine, testing some big motorcycles around the ring - dude was just designing the logo and stuff and planning the blog at that point - he also works for the rental/instruction place that i specifically linked to above (within this post). AND - we met over beers at Sliders (him and the bike crew were staying there as well!

so yeah, just wanted to pop you that other link and also reinforce how cool Sliders is to stay at hehe

annnnd one more link - my best lap! (i dunno how it is now with the new management and all, but we would get there early in the morning and also late just before closing and have the track pretty much to ourselves. middle of the day you gotta keep moving aside for whatever firebreathing monsters come vrooming up behind you)

http://youtu.be/PoCIOepPcYo