Montclair to Get Zipcars

It'd be a hell of a lot more fun to rent, say, a '57 Ford or a '68 GTO. But a Mini? (Walleroo would no doubt prefer to rent a chopped Softtail.)

How many cars can such an operation actually rent out at any one time? I didn't go to their web site, but I'm supposing you rent when you get off the train and return it the next morn, is that right? Sure doesn't sound, as described, worth the term "phenomenon," that's just press release gush.

"It'd be a hell of a lot more fun to rent, say, a '57 Ford or a '68 GTO."

Yes, it would but not at $4 a gallon!

Okay, just went to the website. So it's a car rental company that leaves 'em at train stations. This is a great advance on what, exactly? (Enterprise isn't good enough?)

It is definitely not a "phenomenon."

And the slow news month hurries on down to its end...

Miss Martta, in my dreams a '68 GTO runs on leaded gas at 29.9 a gallon. Allow me my reveries, please

I also really still think that the fun found in a muscle carwould more than make up for the high price of gas. I mean, that was a Mini pictured! Where is the road joy in that? Why opt for a lasermikey, so to speak, when you can get behind the wheel of a walleroo?

You're quite mistaken about the mini, catheter. It's extra roomy and quite sporty. It's so roomy that Mr. Penn Gillette who is 6'6" is a satisfied owner.

No, Loon, I am not mistaken. It remains a Mini and I don't care what Penn Jillette makes of it. There is no way it can ever be considered "sporty" save by those who've never driven a car built before, oh, let's be kind and say 1980.

I'm not sure about the overall population of baristaville, seems like most of us have cars, but the service in general is great for city dwellers who use cars infrequently. No more paying insurance on a car you hardly use or paying for a monthly parking space which can cost as much as a apartment in baristaville.

The neato thing about ZipCars (and I think one or two other companies have picked up on the busienss model) isn't that you rent them by the day, but by the hour. I've never done it, but apaprently for NYC folks withotu cars it sure beats renting for a weekend when they just need to get to White Plains for a funeral or something. Not sure how feasible it'll be in Montclair, though -- Jersey is a pretty car-centric state.

The neato thing about ZipCars (and I think one or two other companies have picked up on the busienss model) isn't that you rent them by the day, but by the hour. I've never done it, but apaprently for NYC folks withotu cars it sure beats renting for a weekend when they just need to get to White Plains for a funeral or something. Not sure how feasible it'll be in Montclair, though -- Jersey is a pretty car-centric state.

ZIP car has made it's maximum gains in cities where parking and maintaining a personal automobile is challenging. Like Boston, where there are only 633 legal parking spaces for 40,000 cars. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the suburbs or exurbs, where auto transportation is more than a once-in-a-while requirement.

And, Cathar, Minis are exceptionally sporty; their suspensions are probably the closest production vehcile you will find to a road-racing sports car (when it comes to unsprung weight and suspension travel tolerances). And -- when they are properly tweaked and tuned -- they will blow most Porsches off any seriously curvy road. Trust me, I've done it...

Zipcar fleet in NJ includes VW Jetta, Volvo S40, Mazda 3, Honda Fit, Honda Civic, Toyota Prius, and more. Small economical cars for basic transportation.

If you want a nicer car, try this.

Conan, respectfully, I don't want to blow a Porsche off the road. I simply want to enjoy driving, and a car I can almost wrap my arms around is not the vehicle. I rented a Mini in Malta, where there aren't even any real hills and straightaways are few and far between. It was like being seated on a gnat, and wealthy Maltese in their BMW's and Alfas loooovved passing me.

As for a Mini being properly tuned and so forth, I don't want to remake "The Fast And The Furious," either. I just want a production car that at red lights makes me feel like I have to pull on its choke collar, that seems to dance resentfuly under me, that wants to get someplace quick that it probably knows more about than I do. That, too, can never be a Mini.

I noticed in the NY Times Automobile section this past Sunday that there are dealers in the city offering "summer leases" for Ferraris. I suspect that might appeal to certain of the Hamptons wannabes, along with Tanning Salons and Hair Club For Men.

I still think you are selling them too short, Cathar, size does matter -- but I am over 6 feet and the Mini fits me pretty well. I don't own one, and probably won't because I have given up stick shifts in urban areas, but I drove one pretty much at the limit at Lime Rock and came away pretty impressed. Not since the original VW GTI and one of Bob Sharp's tweaked Datsun 510's have I had so much fun with so little metal.

Okay, that Zipcar has other cars is duly noted. Still, however, how truly different is this operation from any other rental car company? I'm still waiting for the "phenomenal" aspect to kick in.

But thank you much, Jim, for the "other" car rental company. I shall now proceed to dream on.

Friend in college had a Ferrari, purchased with money his father had left him. We used to borrow it on weekends and take it up to Putnam County to roar around. Amazingly temperamental machine, in and out of the dealership, he eventually sold it to an Italian-born mechanic there. My own dream car remains a Morgan (though to come across Morgan's rarely open US "hq" in a tiny Dutchess County town is a total shock in terms of a place that truly doesn't seem interested in ANYONE's business, let alone in vending parts and repairs).

i know my wife's son and his girlfriend have used the zipcar service and it's very practical in NYC. As for the Mini...I had a friend who was 6'2 and drove comfortably in his Mini. But as cathar states...who wants to drive a care you can practically put your arms around

Cathar, do you really want a sports car with a wooden frame? (I know, Morgan still makes them look like they were built in 1939, but they are using metal frames now...)

The cool thing about riding in a Morgan, Conan, used to be to "feel" (or imagine you were feeling, anyway) the wooden frame bend as the car took corners and then drift back to its original shape as you came out of it. It was like flipping back a popsicle stick while holding it in your fingers. Another college friend had one of them for quite a while, although just during 4 years of college he lost 3 hood straps.

2-3 year waiting list for cars, too, at least. But yes, I'd like one. It'd be nice to have a semi-affordable vehicle (provided I win the lottery) that's almost entirely handmade, of good British craftsmanship.

We sure don't see too many of them on the roads, however, do we? (Bless you for clearly about knowing them.) That's why I was happy to come across "US hq" a few years ago. Every day for a week the door was locked and the grass clearly hadn't been mowed for at least a month and inside the "showroom" there was one without plates and one with Jersey plates. I just somehow like what I think that conveys, this kind of laissez-faire, old money attitude that there's time enough to pick up some parts. I'd probably imagine myself a character in an Evelyn Waugh novel.

Whereas when I see Minis I think of an old Michael Caine movie.

So, zipcar got a permit for their cars to park at some of Montclair's train stations.

I thought that the wait for permits for parking at local train stations was 3+ years.

Am i not understanding correctly?

I think the uniqueness of Zipcar is the ability to walk up to your selected car on the street and waive your Zipcard in front of the card reader inside the car to unlock the car and access its keys. There is no agency location to pickup and dropoff. You get a street location and thats it. Its more like car sharing rather than a traditional rental car company. Plus you can schedule for as little as one hour usage.

Still, this being NJ, car rentals of any form are small potatoes to car ownership. The ideal Zipcar customer has no car and only needs one for infrequent trips, such as a college student or NYC resident needing to go mall shopping or to a job interview out-of-town. The brilliance of Zipcar only works when more people give up their cars for such a service, and I just don't see that happening out here in the 'burbs. Want more proof: witness the initial enthusiasm for the hip Vespa store in Cedar Grove, only to see it close its doors within two years, no doubt due to lack of sales.

Zip Car launched when I was in college, if I remember correctly. Or at least, they set up on campus then -- there were at least a few, parked in designated parking spots, only a few minute's walk away from the dorms. The rental process seemed much more amenable to youthful impulsiveness than traditional car rental. Once you were a member of the website, I think you could claim any zip car, anywhere -- sort of like those municipal car sharing/bike sharing programs my friends were always trying to start.

At the time I didn't have particular use for it, but I remember thinking it was a brilliant idea for college students. Car use isn't an everday thing on a residential college, so rental makes some sense -- but this would normally be quite a hastle, first requiring transportation to a car rental place (the nearest being several miles away), and then paperwork. Hardly appropriate for an impulse night on the town.

Too, the zip cars enjoyed much better parking than any mortal student (or faculty member, for that matter) could enjoy. At my undergraduate college, student parking was scarce, and awarded by some combination of seniority and lottery. Being allocated parking in a lot that was 20 minutes (walk) from campus was not unusual. Freshman weren't even allowed cars on campus. But the zip cars were parked right next to the library.

Yes but if one of those NYers comes to visit you, they can get off the train and zip on over with their zip car card. Now if we could only get weekend train service to go the other way....

I think that Zipcars in Montclair will actually be a pretty great thing for some people when you consider that here in Montclair, owning a car all the time when you only need it sometimes can be a real drag if your apartment doesn't come with an assigned parking space and your options are to pay an arm and a leg for a combination of night and day permits, to just pay through the nose for either a night or a day permit and then have to buy $5 a pop day passes whenever you don't need your car for a day, or to keep moving your car every two hours.

I own a mini-cooper that I won 5 years ago at a radio convention in Phillie...I have never had such fun driving (not easy to say on these insane crazy pot-holed Joisey roads)...it has BMW technology and is a solid little car with 6 airbags for safety....and how about 35 miles to a gallon gas?...for those "non-believers" take a ride and see for yourself....if you see my yellow mini around town with a "I love radio" sticker on the bumper - ask for a drive...it's a zippy fun little car...

The only patron of that Vespa dealer that I know now walks with a limp & no longer has the Vespa. He got creamed by an inattentive driver making a right turn. These roads aren't Vespa-friendly.