Rental cars to consider on the next business trip: Hyundai Accent for $27 a day, Ford Crown Victoria for $37 . . . Ferrari 360 Spyder Modena F1, $1,800?

Aspiring executives, celebratory college grads, wannabe celebrities and every kind of automobile adherent can now tool around San Diego County on the ritziest of wheels.

At least for a fleeting moment or two.

“Not everybody has $180,000″ to spend on a new car, said Sandrine Danglard, co-owner with her husband, Franck, of San Diego Prestige, an exotic car rental company in La Jolla. “For some people, it’s the dream of their life” to drive a Lamborghini Gallardo or Maserati Spyder GT.

The company, which opened last month, brings a relatively new twist to the local car rental industry: Ultra high-end vehicles without the dents or bargain-basement rates.

Prestige sports a fleet of eight luxury cars, which already are spinning their wheels for visiting company executives, newlyweds and the nouveau riche who want to test various high-end models before buying them at a dealer.

Rentals cost as little as $350 a day, although customers are required to put down a deposit of as much as $3,500 and pay between 50 cents and $1.50 extra per mile. (The first 50 miles are free.)

Jason Overell, a local nightclub promoter, was in the Prestige showroom recently at the wheel of a Lotus Elise he had rented to determine whether it would give him the ride of his dreams.

“I want to see if it’s the (type of) car I want” to purchase, said Overell, adding that he was unaware of how much he was paying for the daylong spin. “I want to have my way with it.”

Renting out the good life, mile by mile, has long been lucrative for car companies ensconced in such rarefied enclaves as Hollywood and Manhattan.

For instance, Beverly Hills Rent-A-Car, which opened in 1992, notes on its Web site that its posh automobiles are driven by “the world’s most renowned personalities, corporate leaders, and members of numerous royal families.”

The company said it has grown at a rate of more than 25 percent a year since its founding.

Analysts said there are many niche retailers aware that some people want to grab hold of the American Dream, however briefly, among them jewelers that rent diamond necklaces for the evening and landlords who rent mansions for a party.

San Diego County is “not Beverly Hills, but it’s a pretty affluent community” able to support such vanity-related businesses, said George Whalin, president of Retail Management Consultants in San Marcos.

A company like Prestige should also thrive with well-heeled visitors from Mexico, Whalin noted.

The Prestige showroom looked the other day like the valet parking section at a Rodeo Drive eatery.

All sleek and shiny, the Porsches and kindred vehicles had the look of untouchable museum pieces.

Prestige, which employs five full-time workers and four part-time employees, said it plans to quickly add to its pricey fleet of cars, some of which cost as much as $180,000 new.

Much of the fleet is composed of autos that were already owned by Franck Danglard, a car aficionado, when he and his wife decided to invest $1 million to open the business.

Franck is a former partner in Miramar Speed Circuit, an indoor go-kart race business. He also operates FID Group, a clothing distribution and wholesale company that has revenue of $2.5 million annually.

The roughest part in getting Prestige rolling was convincing several insurance companies to extend liability coverage to the company, said Danglard, adding that no customer has complained about the lofty rates.

“For someone who owns a jet and spends $2,000 an hour flying it, $2,000 is not that much” to rent a car for a day or two, he said.

Besides daily and weekly rental programs, Prestige also offers customers with less disposable cash the chance to take the Ferrari 360 for an escorted three-hour spin through Julian for $800, among other less-costly plans.

The company also sponsors “arrive and drive” meets at Qualcomm Stadium, where potential NASCAR stars can, for example, take the Lamborghini Gallardo out on the track for five minutes at $75 and the Mercedes SL 55 AMG for 15 minutes at $125.

“We get a lot of kids who just turned 21″ and who want to drive a top-end model, Danglard said.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 25th, 2005 at 6:12 am and is filed under Press Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.