Closer to home, right here in Brooklyn, this 1968 Volkswagen Squareback is the $300-a-day classic I could most easily imagine driving (or even owning)—a curvy station wagon for running errands or quick road trips upstate.
By sheer coincidence, that’s what the Squareback’s owner, 33-year-old graphic designer Noah Venezia, uses it for. It makes driving fun, he said. People notice you. “Even in New York, they’ve seen everything. They’re fairly indifferent. But if you cut somebody off, or jump into an exit at the last minute, nobody seems to get mad when you’re driving that car. People give you a lot more leeway,” he said.
It’s also “a pain in the ass,” Venezia said. Like many classic cars, it breaks down. Often. “The old owner had the wrong cylinder heads, and it was burning oil, so I’d be going down the road, and there’d be this gigantic plume of blue smoke behind me,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago, the generator went down. Pretty major stuff.”
In fact, every time he’s had an inquiry via the platform—a photo shoot for Playboy, a family that wanted it for a wedding—the car has been in the shop. “It’s had a lot of work done,” Venezia said, estimating repairs at $5,000 in the four years he’s owned it. “But it seems to be in a good place now.”
Which is why, I guess, renting is so appealing: all the fun, none of the hassle—and Hagerty’s roadside assistance plan if anything goes wrong.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.