When I rent cars in Europe, I try to rent from SIXT if I can. It’s not always possible. Sometimes they cost more than the competition, sometimes they have no availability, and most recently they had a mileage limit when no other competitor did.
But my best car rental experiences have been with the bright orange German brand. I first rented from SIXT in the Frankfurt Airport on a business trip to Germany in 1999. I had rented a plain vanilla Opel. I greeted the guy at the counter in my barely remembered German from 20 years before. He smiled, spoke English noting my horrible accent and offered me an upgrade.
He said, “For an additional $10 per day, you can have a BMW 750i.” I blinked. “Really?” I said. “Yes. No problem. Silver. Would you like to upgrade?” I would and did. I went to the lot and there was a silver BMW with a 5.4-liter, 322hp V12 engine. It had a five-speed automatic. I usually get stick shifts in Europe, but I was too happy to care about the transmission.
On the A5 Autobahn at 2am I verified that rental cars have a governor or speed limiter set to 250kph (155mph). The two-ton sedan was glass smooth at that speed. Twenty years before I drove that same autobahn in a $400 ten-year-old 1969 VW Beetle with a 40 hp 1200cc flat four. With a tailwind I could get that car just over 100kph. Everything passed me in the Beetle. In the BMW, I passed everything. It was awesome.
The next time I went to Germany, I again reserved a plain vanilla Opel with SIXT. I asked for an upgrade and for roughly $10 per day, I got an Audi A6 Turbo. And that night I checked the speed limiter.
In November at the end of my last trip, I rented a from SIXT. No upgrade, but very friendly service. It was a day trip from Paris to Le Mans. After seeing Ford v Ferrari in Paris, I was jazzed to see the site and museum of the most legendary 24-hour race.
I have rented with Europcar more than SIXT because they tend to have the cheapest cars, and some of the places I go, like Latvia and Georgia and Israel, no SIXT cars were available.
But the orange logo of SIXT will always be my favorite.
