Rental Car Hot Swap on the Road to SEMA

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Well, I was supposed to be driving the GT-R to Vegas, but my luck just didn’t hold. Last night, I got a text saying the wheels and the tires still weren’t on the car, and that I was hitching a ride in the rental. Awesome. It wasn’t like I was looking forward to a Mach 2 strafing run across the desert or anything. Of course, the trip might have been smoother if our Jeep Patriot hadn’t decided to take a dump 45 minutes in. Apparently, the tranny fluid was overheating, so we pulled over at a gas station, and while we were making arrangements to grab a replacement car , I spotted one of GM’s Camaros gassing up. My camera was in the car, and everyone was yelling at me—”Coyle, in the car! Avis closes in 20 minutes!”—so I couldn’t get a picture, but it was black and the whole front end was naked carbon fiber. It was a diabolical piece of kit.

Anyway, we would up getting a KIA Sorento, which was way nicer than the Jeep. Mike Robleto, one of our sales guys, is six feet two, but still he had plenty of room in the back seat, and there was tons of space for all our gear. The Sorento’s interior was also way better—the consul was a cleaner design and the plastic panels softer—than the Patriot’s, but unfortunately, the stereo didn’t have an have an auxiliary, so we were at the mercy of commercial radio for the trip across the desert. But it could have been worse, and we saw some cars headed to the show on the way. Hit the jump to see a few photos from the road.