San Diego Hoon
Discussion
Hi to all,
Thought I would share a tremendous day's driving I had last weekend (Sunday) in the mountain roads to the north and east of San Diego, CA.
I was attending an industry conference in Coronado for the first few days of the following week, and decided to get into town a little early enjoy the warm souther California weather. Also decided to rent an 'exotic' car from the few rental firms in the region that offer such vehicles, and after a bit of 'toing and froing', settled on an Aston V8 Vantage Roadster. I used one the the big name rental companies, who have recently introduced an exotics section in San Diego in the last few months.
I spend a great Sunday hacking through the wonderful roads between Escondido, Julian and the roads to the east of San Diego. I found these routes through internet searches, with local biker and piston head forums, where these and others were also recommended, and my goodness they were spot on! It looks like there are plenty more to try in and around the ones I experienced.
A few of observations:
The roads - Although these are relatively modest State highways (simple two-way roads, equivalent to the UK's A roads or good B roads), the road surface is excellent. part of the route is quite high up (between 3000 and a little over 5000 feet), and they do get snow up there, there was no rough or broken up sections at any point.
The other road users are very courteous, often pulling over into "pullouts' (laybys) to allow faster traffic to make brisk progress - I always acknowledged with a friendly wave
There were quite a number of similar minded folks out and about during the day, with an eclectic mix of bikers (Harleys, as well as Ducati's) as well as Cobra's and some fine looking vintage and classics out for a run in the sunshine
The car: It was tremendous fun. Although I could only get an auto, once I got the hang of using the paddles through the twisty sections, it certainly brought a smile to my face. I think I would prefer a manual, but all things considered, it was a great day. If I could have had my V12V there, now that would have been AMAZING!
Here are a few pics of the day.....
If anyone finds themselves in this region, you could have a great day or two exploring the roads around the region.
For those interested, here is a link to the routes I took (I hope the link below works)
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=2072766907447...
Archie
Thought I would share a tremendous day's driving I had last weekend (Sunday) in the mountain roads to the north and east of San Diego, CA.
I was attending an industry conference in Coronado for the first few days of the following week, and decided to get into town a little early enjoy the warm souther California weather. Also decided to rent an 'exotic' car from the few rental firms in the region that offer such vehicles, and after a bit of 'toing and froing', settled on an Aston V8 Vantage Roadster. I used one the the big name rental companies, who have recently introduced an exotics section in San Diego in the last few months.
I spend a great Sunday hacking through the wonderful roads between Escondido, Julian and the roads to the east of San Diego. I found these routes through internet searches, with local biker and piston head forums, where these and others were also recommended, and my goodness they were spot on! It looks like there are plenty more to try in and around the ones I experienced.
A few of observations:
The roads - Although these are relatively modest State highways (simple two-way roads, equivalent to the UK's A roads or good B roads), the road surface is excellent. part of the route is quite high up (between 3000 and a little over 5000 feet), and they do get snow up there, there was no rough or broken up sections at any point.
The other road users are very courteous, often pulling over into "pullouts' (laybys) to allow faster traffic to make brisk progress - I always acknowledged with a friendly wave
There were quite a number of similar minded folks out and about during the day, with an eclectic mix of bikers (Harleys, as well as Ducati's) as well as Cobra's and some fine looking vintage and classics out for a run in the sunshine
The car: It was tremendous fun. Although I could only get an auto, once I got the hang of using the paddles through the twisty sections, it certainly brought a smile to my face. I think I would prefer a manual, but all things considered, it was a great day. If I could have had my V12V there, now that would have been AMAZING!
Here are a few pics of the day.....
If anyone finds themselves in this region, you could have a great day or two exploring the roads around the region.
For those interested, here is a link to the routes I took (I hope the link below works)
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=2072766907447...
Archie
AMArchie said:
Although I could only get an auto, once I got the hang of using the paddles through the twisty sections, it certainly brought a smile to my face. I think I would prefer a manual
It is a manual, just a robotic one with paddle shift control. Same gearbox as your V12V 
I might be finding myself in Phoenix around April time... What sort of hire car company rents Astons, what sort of mileage allowances do they give you and what sort of money does this cost? Looks an amazing experience
Thanks for the comments and questions.
I rented from Enterprise Exotics Car Collection. They are located at Balboa Ave, San Diego, but they arranged for pick up and return at their San Diego airport facility . The contact there was Stephen Finn.
Here is the link to their website. I believe they also have an exotics collection available in LA.
http://exoticcars.enterprise.com/sandiego
As for the cost, it came to about $925 for the 24 hrs - and I covered about 250 miles over the period with my "hoon in the hills".
I can't lay me hands on the invoice, so the following might be out a bit but the milage allowance from memory is 100 per day, with an excess charge of 50 cents per mile.
Insurance is not straight forward, as a) you have to take out separate insurance with them - costs about $200, Credit cards do often offer insurance for car rental but note exotics are explicitly exclude on mine (HSBC), and the car value limit is also likely to be too low anyway ($60k in my case). b) Enterprise requested that they place an additional temporary charge of $11k on my card. This last mount is credited out upon return of the car in good nick.
I rented from Enterprise Exotics Car Collection. They are located at Balboa Ave, San Diego, but they arranged for pick up and return at their San Diego airport facility . The contact there was Stephen Finn.
Here is the link to their website. I believe they also have an exotics collection available in LA.
http://exoticcars.enterprise.com/sandiego
As for the cost, it came to about $925 for the 24 hrs - and I covered about 250 miles over the period with my "hoon in the hills".
I can't lay me hands on the invoice, so the following might be out a bit but the milage allowance from memory is 100 per day, with an excess charge of 50 cents per mile.
Insurance is not straight forward, as a) you have to take out separate insurance with them - costs about $200, Credit cards do often offer insurance for car rental but note exotics are explicitly exclude on mine (HSBC), and the car value limit is also likely to be too low anyway ($60k in my case). b) Enterprise requested that they place an additional temporary charge of $11k on my card. This last mount is credited out upon return of the car in good nick.
AMArchie said:
Thanks for the comments and questions.
I rented from Enterprise Exotics Car Collection. They are located at Balboa Ave, San Diego, but they arranged for pick up and return at their San Diego airport facility . The contact there was Stephen Finn.
Here is the link to their website. I believe they also have an exotics collection available in LA.
http://exoticcars.enterprise.com/sandiego
As for the cost, it came to about $925 for the 24 hrs - and I covered about 250 miles over the period with my "hoon in the hills".
I can't lay me hands on the invoice, so the following might be out a bit but the milage allowance from memory is 100 per day, with an excess charge of 50 cents per mile.
Insurance is not straight forward, as a) you have to take out separate insurance with them - costs about $200, Credit cards do often offer insurance for car rental but note exotics are explicitly exclude on mine (HSBC), and the car value limit is also likely to be too low anyway ($60k in my case). b) Enterprise requested that they place an additional temporary charge of $11k on my card. This last mount is credited out upon return of the car in good nick.
Thanks excellent info!I rented from Enterprise Exotics Car Collection. They are located at Balboa Ave, San Diego, but they arranged for pick up and return at their San Diego airport facility . The contact there was Stephen Finn.
Here is the link to their website. I believe they also have an exotics collection available in LA.
http://exoticcars.enterprise.com/sandiego
As for the cost, it came to about $925 for the 24 hrs - and I covered about 250 miles over the period with my "hoon in the hills".
I can't lay me hands on the invoice, so the following might be out a bit but the milage allowance from memory is 100 per day, with an excess charge of 50 cents per mile.
Insurance is not straight forward, as a) you have to take out separate insurance with them - costs about $200, Credit cards do often offer insurance for car rental but note exotics are explicitly exclude on mine (HSBC), and the car value limit is also likely to be too low anyway ($60k in my case). b) Enterprise requested that they place an additional temporary charge of $11k on my card. This last mount is credited out upon return of the car in good nick.
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