Eli had a show in Palm Springs...

and I had a plan to get us there. I wasn’t playing the gig with him this time—I’m only half good on guitar, anyway—but I had a fast car, courtesy of Hertz, and so you can see how the plan started coming together. “Let’s hit Vegas, too,” I suggested, though it was miles from LA and hardly on the way to Palm Springs. But that was fine; detours with distractions always made sense to both of us, and when you’re driving a good car you never want the road trip to end. Thanks to Hertz and their Dream Cars and Adrenaline Collections, we had all kinds of good cars at hand— four of them, in fact—with three cities and three days to experience it all. Gentlemen, start your engines.

The company perhaps best known for professionally serving business travelers has a long history with performance and luxury vehicles, too. In fact, Hertz has a long history, period. The company was founded in Chicago in 1918 and is currently the largest U.S. rental car company, with locations in 145 different countries worldwide.

In 1966, they partnered with racing legend Carroll Shelby to produce a specialty Mustang, a customized high performance model dubbed the GT 350H (“H” for Hertz). Unsurprisingly, in a decade famed for car songs like “Little Deuce Coupe” and “409,” people loved the company’s “Rent-a-Racer” program. Problem was, clients actually raced them. There were reports of Mustangs coming back with marks where roll bars had been welded into (and then removed from) the interiors for weekend races, never mind what happened to the four-speed manual transmissions, and so the program was discontinued.

Fast forward to today, and Hertz once again has a powerhouse Mustang available, this time built with current racing standouts Penske. While Hertz is less tolerant of welded customizations and abused transmissions these days, the modern Hertz Penske Mustang GT is nonetheless a proper racer, with all of the best bits from the Ford Racing Performance Parts Catalog installed to ludicrously great effect. More than a hint of the car’s potential immediately becomes apparent when the key is turned, as Eli discovered when I picked him up at his home in Los Angeles. The thunderous noise from the quad exhausts can only be described as “rude,” and we loved every minute of it. “Who knew?” he asked, musing about how a rental car company could include anything this great in its catalog. Lower, meaner and far faster than any stock Mustang, the Hertz Penske Mustang GT made short work of the trip to Vegas, and every second of the journey was exhilarating. Just north of a speed I won’t mention, the car found another gear and shot forward like it had been stung, unexpectedly throwing us back in our seats. Honestly, if I’d known you could rent a car this fun, I’d have made it an excuse to take a million weekend road trips already.

We came into Vegas at night— the best time, as the lights of the strip set the whole road aglow and put the energy of the town right into you. Without so much as a look at our hotel, we headed straight for the Hertz office in Las Vegas. The “desert racer” portion of our trip was over and now it was time for “high rollers,” so we swapped out our Penske Mustang GT for a new C63 AMG Mercedes—I only wish we’d had time to stop by Armani for a pair of new suits first. The car is extraordinary, part of Hertz’s “Dream Cars” collection, which also includes the Ferrari California, Lamborghini Gallardo Bicolore, Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster and other luminary autos, variously available at a large number of Hertz locations around the country. The Mercedes was more spry than the Mustang—and certainly more civilized—and with roughly 503hp and a 0-60 time of 3.9 seconds, we were at our hotel in no time. Too quickly, in fact, so we took a spin around the block to show off a bit and to enjoy the whip-fast cornering, pleasant grumble of the engine and quick ick of the accelerator. When we finally did pull up to our hotel, there was no shortage of valets rushing to help us. We loaded our guitars out from the trunk (I brought mine along in case we were suddenly inspired to do a bit of songwriting) and headed inside to try our luck—and then to get some sleep.

When you forget to close the curtains in Vegas, you pay for it in the morning. So enamored were we by the view of the strip from our high-floor room, Eli and I had fallen asleep in our respective beds without accounting for the fact that our floor-to ceiling windows faced east and that the early-rising desert sun is big, bold and merciless. No matter. We had to get up early anyway as we had another leg of our journey to complete—and we had to pick up yet another great car from Hertz before heading to Palm Springs. After a couple of laps around town in the Mercedes, we bid it a fond farewell and jumped into an elegant Porsche Cayenne, another Dream Cars member and just the thing for a drive through the desert. The driving position in the capable SUV was more relaxed than the racers we’d enjoyed the day before, and it proved a comfortable way to head out of town. Rather than sticking to the major roads, we left I-15 and jumped on Morningstar Mine Rd, which cuts through the Mojave National Preserve. It takes a bit longer, but the twists and turns, numerous rises and bumps and occasional chances at some dirt driving make it well worthwhile. What’s a road trip if you don’t bother to enjoy the scenery? After a stop at a roadside Mexican restaurant and miles spent staring out the windows just listening to music and watching all the beauty roll by, we finally pulled into Palm Springs. It was just getting dark and we couldn’t wait to grab a cold beer and then some sleep.

The next day was the day of Eli’s show, but I couldn’t stick around. Some friends had driven out to see him play, and so I left him in their care and headed to Hertz once again to trade the Cayenne for something smaller, lighter and quicker. After all, it was just me traveling now. I told Hertz I needed to get back to LA in a hurry, and they suggested the sharp-driving Porsche 911, which I readily accepted. Technically it’s one of the company’s Dream Cars, but it easily qualifies for their Adrenaline Collection as well. With the wind screaming by outside (windows open, of course—tremendous fun) I left the golf courses, windmills and palm trees of Palm Springs behind and shot west towards LA. Too soon I was parked at the edge of the Pacific, watching the sunset and marveling at how much fun Eli and I had enjoyed in just three days.

The only cars I’d rented before were tied to business or to personal travel—and Hertz’s excellent catalog and the perks of its Hertz Gold Plus Rewards program certainly ensures the company is a great choice for that. But it never occurred to me that I might rent a car just to drive something other than what I own, that the top offerings in Hertz’s Dream Cars and Adrenaline Collection could themselves be reason to travel. If nothing else, driving four high-performance and high-luxury vehicles in three days proved that a quick road trip with a friend is all the excuse one needs to get away, and that—just as the old saying goes—the journey really is the destination.