A bit of background. I’m a dual UK/US citizen who relocated back to the US last winter after living 10 years in the UK. When I moved back, I bought a 2015 NC in mint condition (only 3K miles). The car has been a joy to drive - much more fun than the Jag XF I used to own in the UK! I joined the local “Miata” club which is quite active and a friendly lot.
This July I am returning to the UK for a visit, and I would love to motor around the hills of the Cotswolds for a couple of days. Unfortunately, none of the major car rental companies carry the MX-5. I understand based upon a prior thread (https://www.mx5oc.co.uk/forum/yaf_postst112350_MX5-Hire.aspx) that there might be MX-5 for hire in Scotland, but that’s a bit out of the way.
I am making a personal appeal to any interested members… please let me hire your MX-5! There is a car hire service called Turo (of which I am a member). It is sort of an AirBnB for cars, linking up car owners (looking to make some extra £££) with people looking to hire unusual cars. Turo doesn’t own any cars; they just match up individuals. Most importantly, they provide full insurance coverage for the car and driver. Sadly, there don’t appear to be any MX-5 currently listed on Turo UK. So I am asking (if you are interested) to arrange for me to hire your MX-5 through the Turo service.
Needless to say, I would treat your car with care and respect. I’m happy to provide a letter of reference from my local MX-5 club president, and any other reasonable security deposit you might desire. I’ve also got plenty of experience driving on the (not right) side of the road!
HiyaCar is not an option unfortunately - you need to have a valid UK license (which means you need to be a UK resident, which I am no longer). Turo is much better in this regard. They actually have quite a few MX-5 available for hire in the US.
BookAClassic seems to be asking £1,000/day … a little above my price range.
GTClassicHire is a possibility; I am reaching out to them.
When I spent part of my life in Coventry(2001 - 2011), my retreats included race tracks, Warwick Castle and cycling in the Cotswolds - really good memories.
I guess the obvious answer is to buy a car and sell it but as you are only here for a few days, hard to justify the effort.
Hopefully someone on here has a car they are prepared to sublet to you.
If the MX5 route fails I can recommend some lovely cycle routes:-)
Don’t think that is true. I was a non-UK resident for several years in the US, never lost my licence.
Obviously you needed to be a GB resident when you took the test, but it should be otherwise good until your 70th birthday.
Having an incorrect address on a GB driving licence doesn’t invalidate it. In the UK, there are two driving jurisdictions; Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If you are a GB licence and become resident in NI, it used to be the case that you were forced to turn in the GB licence in exchange for a NI licence. NI switched to photo ID licences before GB. EU Law meant this was discriminatory. I lived there on a paper GB licence, which had my old UK address from when I lived in the UK from several years earlier (moved from GB to US, then to NI). The police advice was to update the displayed address on the licence by pen.
To have a valid UK license, you need to declare that you are UK resident, which I am not.
As a practical matter, last week I investigated what you need to open an account at hiyacar.co.uk. You need a UK phone number, a bank card, and a photo of a valid UK license. An EU license is also OK, at least as of this week! But no USA license allowed.
Hiyacar validates your UK license with the DVLA. But they also cross check your address somehow - probably versus the electoral rolls or the council tax rolls. No UK residence, no hiyacar membership. Not to mention what would happen to the insurance coverage if you got in an accident. So in any regard, I can’t open a hiyacar account.
Turo has essentially same business model as hiyacar, but is set up internationally. So a MX-5 enthusiast from the UK could open an account there and use it to hire an MX-5 in the US while on holiday. Just an idea…
Thanks Rhino. I’m really looking looking forward to the trip. The Cotswolds are my favourite region of England, and Warwick Castle is spectacular. We’re hoping to see a few National Trust properties while we are visiting.
I realise the MX-5 owners club is not the ideal place to make this request: the typical club member is probably more passionate about their car than the typical MX-5 owner, which means they are probably less willing to lend their car out just to make a few hundred quid. All I can say is that I would treat a hired car as well as I treat my own MX-5.
Reading some experiences, I would give this Turo a miss. You don’t know what junk you will end up with. What if the car breaks down, and you take it to a Mazda dealer @£100 per hour, then bill the owner. Said owner screams at you that he would have fixed it himself, and refuses to pay. Can get messy. I know they have insurance schemes, but how do they work if you are renting a 30 year old Eunos Roadster, which could break down at any time. You might crash the car; even a relatively minor prang over here will probably write the car off, leaving the owner out of pocket (the insurance settlement won’t cover a decent replacement).
Plus I suspect willing owners will have to tell their insurer that their car is now “For Hire”; that will lead to increased premiums, or more likely, given how many of us have specialist cover, loss of cover.
Personally, I’d just seek out a regular rental car. You can get a rwd BMW convertible or similar easily enough. And you can collect at the airport, rather than having to spend part of your time going somewhere you don’t want to go, to get a car (and how do you get there, hire a second car?) and dropping off the said car at the end of the holiday, further wasting time.
As for Warwick Castle; its gone down hill these days, given Tussauds ownership. Might as well slap a Disney sign on it, given the fakery going on. Fun for little kids perhaps. I worked on my PhD at Warwick, so Coventry-Leam was my stamping ground.
Thanks for the advice. I visited Warwick Castle about 7-8 years ago, but I think we’ll pass on it this time. We’re staying in Painswick and Swinbrook (near Burford). We have some ideas of what we want to see, but any suggestions appreciated.
Regarding Turo, I suppose it’s a risk. It’s similar to the risk you get when renting a house on AirBnB. But we’ve had good luck with that service, staying in some very nice homes. E.G., we stayed in a nice flat right on the Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Fringe when all the regular hotels were booked up or outrageously expensive. We also stayed in a lovely flat in Stockholm last summer (the only issue - fifth floor, no lift!).
I’m actually hiring an ND MX-5 (via the Turo service) from a chap nearby in Boston MA next weekend - I’ll let you know how that goes. I’m pretty sure that Turo provides the insurance cover, not the car owners own insurance. So I don’t think the owners insurance would be impacted. Rhino’s post gave me an idea of how to satisfy my obsessive desire to find an MX-5 for hire.
Might I ask, what subject did you pursue for your PhD?
Insurance in the US is kind of different from the UK.
Way back, I was a marine microbiologist, and I was interested in marine bacteria able to oxidise methanesulfonic acid, thus closing the loop on James Lovelock’s CLAW hypothesis of global climate control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLAW_hypothesis
That PhD saw me bobbing around in the Channel and North Sea at times, and scouring estuarine areas. My two brand genus of bacteria discovered came from the Plymouth Sound area. Afterwards, I undertook conventional postdoctoral research looking at sulfur turnover in the Gulf of Mexico. Then onto an applied microbial ecology fellowship at QUB in Belfast. Left academia to work in industry on biological threat agent defence technologies, and now Director of Research, providing advice to VCs and banks looking to move into healthcare and medical devices.
Another approach, which has been done, but depends on how long you are over for, is to ship your own car over. Probably about $3000 for the round trip shipping, and a few weeks without your car. Takes careful planning.
I ran into an owner at Silverstone who had brought over his California E-Type for a holiday.
Another left field option is to buy a Eunos Roadster in the UK (Mk1 MX5); and ship it back to the US, and cash in. If its 1993 or older, perfectly legit in the US, and these cars seem to attract a premium. But again, takes careful planning to make sure you don’t end up with a pup. And like buying a car to leave in the UK, you face significant insurance challenges; that might be £1000, irresepective of your previous history.
Great thread on someone taking an ex-UK car back to the US (Maryland):
That Eunos rebuild was fascinating to see and read about. It’s far beyond my ability and ambition to do that kind of job, but I’m glad to see someone else undertake such an impressive project. Thank goodness he changed those hideous lime green rims.
I would not go to the UK to import a Japanese car. Instead, the obvious choice for me would be to import a classic Land Rover Defender. A Defender 90 or 110 that goes for less than £10,000 in the UK would fetch $70K here in the US. It would be a great truck to ride in the countryside or on the unpaved roads we have around here. They’re not easy to import, however. This shows you what goes wrong if you break the rules (painful to watch):
I was unsuccessful in my attempt to find an MX-5 for hire… I tried just about everything I could think of.
If there is a MX5OC member in the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire area who would be willing to take me on a 10 minute tour of the countryside in exchange for a friendly pint at their local, please drop me a line! We’ll be there on Wed/Thu/Fri/Sat this week.
But no USA license allowed.
