I sure hope this works - 5 speed for our rental fleet.
 

I finally decided to roll the dice and buy a 5 speed manual car for our rental fleet. People call asking for something "good on gas", so I figured this would be something that fits the bill that no one else offers around here. I am hoping we will be able to weed out the people that want to burn out someone else's clutch to learn how to drive standard. A lot of european tourists ask if we have a manual transmission vehicle available, so I figure if we only rent it to people with cool accents we should be ok! Either it will be the best or worst idea I have ever had. I bought a cheapo car just in case it is the latter. Feel free to tell me it was the best idea, I am already having second thoughts!

I think it's a great idea. When I've rented cars overseas, they've been manuals for the most part. You won't have to worry unless your renters are Americans or young Canadians. Even then, those who can't drive MTs will likely be terrified of getting stuck in the middle of an intersection, unable to drive the car.

What did you buy ?

Most rental cars here are stick shift.
But then, that's what we usually drive over here ;)

Why not go online and see if you can find precautionary standards used by Europeans? Maybe they have professional online forums you could ask? It seems that in the lands of autobahns, racing green, and formula 1 they must have yahoos too. How do they screen? What secruity do they get? Is the law different or do they just have different contract and pre- and post-rental practices?

I think it is a great idea. I would rent one for certain, if only your business was somewhere I need to go. =)

No, the overseas rental companies didn't make me jump through any special hoops to drive their manual tranny cars. I think they might have told me the cars were MT, and asked if that was OK. That's logical, given the incompetence of the average American with MTs. They were probably happy I could drive MT, so they wouldn't have to dig up an AT.

Wife and I have a condo in Wistler next June for a week. I was planning on flying to Seattle renting and driving/ferring accross. But now I'll explore the differnces in flight costs so I can rent a hypermilling car.

Most rental car companies won't let you take their cars out of country.

As far as preventing people from renting, we don't really have set rules. As long as someone has a "full" driver's license (there is a graduated licensing program here, so it takes a few years before a new driver has earned a proper license), are over the age of 21, and has a pulse they meet our "on paper" criteria. Though since we own all our rentals, in the end it is really up to us personally if we want to rent a car to someone. If they come in talking about how they have to rent a car because after their 17th accident they can't get insurance for their own car anymore, well we probably won't rent to them.

The car itself is nothing special, like I said I went cheap in case this idea bombs. It's a 2002 Pontiac Grand Am 2 door, but it has an Ecotec 2.2L, factory alloys, and it's black (I am a sucker for any black 2 door car with a stick), but it's really clean with low miles so if anyone does rent it at least it will be a nice ride. I know a smaller car would have been better, but with gas prices the way they are it would have cost me $1500 or so more for something smaller at the auction. This thing was such an oddball and ran so late in the night auction last night that it was pretty much just me and the janitor left in the auction lanes so I got it cheap enough to be able to feel comfortable taking a risk on it. I am going to put a full tank of fuel through it myself before it gets rented out, just for fun to get some FE numbers out of it - er I mean for safety purposes of course.

Oh and we do let people go out of country as long as they let us know first as we have to adjust our coverage on the car they are taking. Most rental places just don't want to bother with the extra effort, but they can do it, here in B.C. anyway.

Need to go? We have beautiful scenery, beautiful women, the finest hydroponic, er tomatoes in the world, and now a 5 speed rental car! How can you NOT need to come here?? I should work for the tourism board ha ha.

When I would go to a car rental company in Europe, they would invariably hand over the keys to a stick-shift car, even knowing I was an American. I remember asking about an automatic so I could satisfy my curiosity, but was told such a car was considered a "luxury" car, and would be charged at luxury rates.

All they ever wanted to see was a valid driver's license and a passport. Oh, and a credit card, of course.