Think rental automobile and ranks of mainstream hatchbacks spring to thoughts – vanilla autos for that fast enterprise journey or quick break and, when completed with, discarded like a spent espresso cup.

Not all rental automobiles are the identical, nevertheless. In addition to the Kia Picantos, Nissan Qashqais and the remaining, a few of the main rental firms can provide extra upmarket autos, though, as I discovered, availability might be contact and go and chances are you’ll merely be supplied ‘something similar’.

Fortunately, this isn’t the case with Avis Prestige, a specialist in supplying high-value rental automobiles at a lot of the main airports in addition to from its central London base.

At any time, its automobiles embrace Volvos, Mercedes, Audis, Land Rovers, Range Rovers and Jaguars, plus a tempting number of Porsches. Some of the automobiles, usually Volvos and Audis, you’re extra more likely to see among the many bread-and-butter leases at, for instance, Avis’s Heathrow depot the place, away from the economy-class travellers being served on the common reserving terminals, Prestige prospects get pleasure from their very own reception space.

Whether they select to rent a Mercedes CLA Shooting Brake or a Porsche 911, they obtain the identical excessive stage of service, together with a private ‘meet and greet’ on arrival.

The firm’s extra upmarket autos are typically delivered to the place prospects need them. For this motive, with solely 350 automobiles out there for the UK (to place that into context, on a typical day Avis Heathrow has round 500 common leases on web site), recognizing one thing comparable to an Avis Prestige 911 parked among the many Corsas and Golfs at Heathrow, Manchester or Edinburgh airports is a job for a aircraft spotter.

For an extended weekend, the associated fee to hire a Range Rover P440e PHEV, for instance, is £1016, though for a Porsche Cayenne Hybrid it’s far much less, at £513. “Some of our customers are successful business people and tourists,” Prestige’s Chris Domoney tells me.

“They might own expensive cars so expect to enjoy the same comfort and performance when they’re away. Others are ex-pats returning to visit family and friends, London residents who don’t own a car and want something different to head out of town for the weekend and golfers heading to play at Gleneagles or St Andrews. A few are customers considering buying a similar car and who want more than a 30-minute test drive.”