Rental Car Fun

Hertz, the rental-car company, raised the hair on a lot of necks when it announced a year ago that it would rerun its genius business scheme of four decades ago, wherein 1,000 specially prepared ’66 Shelby GT350 Mustangs were purchased and then rented to enthusiasts and the star-struck for hefty premiums. The car was called the Shelby GT-H (for Hertz), and it gained the company a ton of publicity, but not all of it favorable, as it turned out. Soon stories were told with sniggers about cars that had been rented and then raced, and how choice performance parts were flying off the GT-Hs and finding their way into more humble Mustangs.

Although we kept our klepto inclinations for GT-H parts firmly in check, the idea of staging our own rental-car derby had an irresistible pull. When the good folks at the Shelby American Automobile Club offered us track time at their 31st annual convention at lovely Virginia International Raceway near Danville, we began reserving Hertz Shelbys. As you’ll see, just filling out the rental forms proved an ordeal. And so our three-part story begins, out in the desert near Las Vegas, with some gearhead idiot almost getting himself a free ride to the rubber room.

Chapter 1:
Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat. Steven Cole Smith explains why …
No one would accuse Amy Boylan, the plucky president of Shelby Automobiles, of being a shrinking violet, but she admitted this guy “scared the hell out of me.” She was driving a prototype 2006 Ford Shelby GT-H in Las Vegas, home of Shelby Automobiles, when a young man driving a new Mustang literally ran her off the road and boxed her in.

“He got out and started walking toward me. I had my phone out and was about to call 9-1-1, but he kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ After I cussed him out, I said, ‘What is wrong with you?’”

“I just bought this Mustang GT,” he said. It still had the window sticker. “I couldn’t afford the Shelby GT500. I didn’t know there was another Shelby.”

Boylan told him that this particular Shelby was a rental car for Hertz. He couldn’t buy one. “Then he asked the question I was dreading,” Boylan said. “‘Are there going to be any more Shelbys I can buy?’”

“Um, yes,” she said. “I thought he was going to cry.”

In August, Shelby and Ford announced that yes, there would be a Shelby Mustang GT, very much like the GT-H, and that you’d be able to buy one in the first quarter of 2007. How much? Probably about $36,000, between the Mustang GT, which starts at $26,020, and the GT500, which starts at $41,675.

The Shelby GT will differ little from the Hertz rental GT-H: The Shelby GT will offer a five-speed manual, whereas the GT-H only has the five-speed automatic. The automatic Shelby GT will have the same 3:55 rear end, but the manual may have a 3:73, which will make the car launch like it has a lot more than the expected 325 horsepower. You’ll be able to get it in black or white with silver stripes, and possibly one or two other colors. The hood will also be different.

And you’ll be able to buy it at Ford dealerships that have met Shelby standards, which is more than 90 percent of them. And you’ll be able to add “genuine” Shelby parts, from a supercharger to a rear spoiler that, incidentally, the Shelby GT won’t have as standard. Ford says it will produce as many as 10,000 of them, should the demand be there.

In the meantime, Hertz would like to invite you to rent a GT-H as sort of a test drive of the 2007 Shelby GT.

It won’t be cheap -- daily rentals seem to average about $150, plus 39 cents a mile over 75 (although a fellow says he rented one in Raleigh, N.C. for $100 a day, unlimited mileage) -- and it may not be easy. You must be over 25, have three forms of identification, sign a lengthy and very limiting agreement, and participate in a tedious checklist session when you pick up the car and when you turn it back in. (“Round air-cleaner-looking thing? Check! Letters on the rear decklid? There’s the S, the H, E, L, B, Y. Check!”)

And it may not be convenient. The GT-H is part of Hertz’s Fun Collection, which includes the Chrysler PT Cruiser and Ford Escape, confirming that “fun” means different things to different people. Initially, the Fun Collection that included Shelbys was limited to 18 cities: six in Florida, seven in California, two in Hawaii, plus Denver, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. But Hertz has added some less-fun cities -- Portland, Cleveland, Boston, Nashville, Charleston, Indianapolis, and Seattle. And, apparently, Raleigh. Shelby is supplying Hertz with 500 cars; they will be reallocated to the new cities, but there will still be just 500 cars in all. Shelby finished the last few in July, so all should be in service by the time you read this.

Hertz actually purchased the GT-Hs, said Paula Rivera, Hertz manager of public affairs, as opposed to the standard leasing arrangement. “We’ll keep them until they have 16,000 to 18,000 miles on them, which we expect will take between nine months and a year. Then we’ll dispose of them.”

Dispose? How so? “We’re going to allow local Ford dealers to buy some, and some we’ll put up for auction. We’ve also received an unbelievable amount of individual inquiries, and some of those may be addressed.” Meaning: Some will likely be sold to individuals.

And for how much? Neither Boylan nor Rivera would guess. The only brand-new Shelby GT-H sold so far was auctioned off for charity in late July at the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis. It brought a staggering $250,000. Good guesses are that retired Hertz GT-Hs will bring between $35,000 and $40,000, likely depending on how many Ford dealers buy them and hoard them.

And what will you be getting for your rental-car money? It isn’t the 500-hp GT500. That’s the most common question those of us who have driven the GT-H have had to answer. The car destined for Hertz starts as a 300-hp Mustang GT, with the 4.6-liter V-8 engine and five-speed automatic transmission. The cars then travel to Shelby Automobiles in Las Vegas to get a Ford Racing Performance Group Power Pack that consists of a cold-air kit, a muffler kit, an X-pipe similar to the one used on the Shelby GT500, a performance calibration, and a cat-back performance exhaust for, says Ford, “the throaty sound that will make this car unmistakably a Shelby Mustang GT-H.”

It also has the Ford Racing Handling Pack that includes specially tuned shock absorbers inspired by the FR500C, 1.5-inch lowering springs, thicker anti-roll bars with urethane bushings and billet-aluminum links, a strut-tower brace, and a Ford Racing 3.55:1 rear-axle assembly for “extra off-the-line acceleration,” says Ford. We measured 0 to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds and the standing quarter-mile in 13.9 seconds at 103 mph with the traction control engaged. These numbers are almost as quick as those of the last manual GT we tested. The GT-H has Mustang GT brakes dressed up with painted calipers, which can be seen through the GT-H’s 17-inch aluminum wheels wearing P235/55ZR-17 performance rubber, as well as a body kit, a different grille, flimsy hood pins, and big gold tape stripes on black paint, which is the only color Hertz ordered. The GT gas cap has been replaced by the V-6’s cap, with the horse logo. The dashboard gets a plastic Shelby decal, signed by Carroll, but when the car is sold to the public, that plastic decal will be replaced by a metal plate, also signed and numbered. Buyers will get a whole wheelbarrow of Shelby stuff, including photos, a book, a trunk plaque signed by the build team, and a letter from Shelby himself.

As suggested, Shelby Automobiles also has a long list of “genuine” performance enhancements, as Boylan tries to rebuild the money-losing company into a winner. “What we want to do is reinvigorate the brand,” she said, “do what Carroll did 40 years ago.” Boylan spent 10 years at Mattel -- she was known as “Hot Wheels Amy” during her stewardship of that product -- “and I know how hard it is to turn the Queen Mary.” The Shelby-Hertz project went from idea to product debut in just four months, and Boylan says that her goal is to keep the company comparably light on its feet. Even at 83, she said, “Carroll is brilliant. He has 10 ideas a day. We can barely keep up with him.”

Chapter 2:
Meanwhile, back in Detroit, the paperwork turns out to be murder, John Phillips discovers …
Robin Warner and I arrived at Hertz’s office near Detroit Metropolitan Airport at 8 a.m. Outside sat our two Shelby GT-H Mustangs, parked so you couldn’t enter the office without walking around them. Both had been hand-washed and -waxed -- undoubtedly a car-rental first.

When it was understood that we were the Mustang renters, four Hertz employees descended -- possibly five -- leaving other customers to wait. We weren’t led to the counter, where the ordinary renters were lined up. Instead, we were directed into what looked like a loan manager’s office, and we were asked to take seats in plush chairs across from an imposing desk. Customer service rep Karla McGinnis said, “Make yourselves comfortable,” suggesting this interview would not be quick, and opened various folders and dossiers. Standing sentry was David Zehel, Hertz’s city maintenance manager, who had a few queries of his own. Other staffers came and went, dropping off contracts and legal briefs and muttering things like, “Be sure to get a six-oh-seven, and the fee recovery versus the VLF -- well, you know.”

Click here to continue the story.