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Cruise Down Collins with Miami's First 'Hertz On Demand' Car Sharing Program

There’s no longer the need to walk from Fontainebleau all the way down to Shake Shack—trust us, it’s far—as car sharing is now making its way to South Beach. Sure there are plenty of two-wheeled options available in Miami, but sometimes you just need to put the pedal to the metal. After all, cruising down Collins isn’t quite the same with streamers coming out of the handlebars.

There’s no cutesy name or gimmick associated with the city’s new program, as they’re simply partnering with Hertz to bring the car share scheme to the masses. Thanks to Hertz on Demand, Miami Beach will now be the first city—at least by their math—to offer up a city-sponsored car sharing system in the Sunshine State. Things officially get underway starting today, and there’s even some kind of ribbon cutting ceremony at the Miami Beach City Hall Garage to celebrate.

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Paris Travel / Transportation / Taxis / Free Stuff / Cars / → All Tags

Tuk-Tuk Taxis Have Arrived in Paris (and They're Free)

There’s plenty of cheap—and electric—cars roaming the streets in and around Paris these days, but now there’s a new type of public transportation arriving in the City of Lights. Tuk-Tuk taxis are most common over in Southeast Asia, but a fleet of free-to-use vehicles are now available to tourists and locals alike.

An optimistic entrepreneur has brought 20 or so of the vehicles into town, and there’s like 150 different places to jump aboard around the city. The operation is newly up and running, and the taxis are scheduled to do their thing each and every day of the week.

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Hertz Brings the Best (and Most Expensive) Rental Cars to the UK

We’re all about awesome rental cars, but the latest offerings from Hertz might just be the best ones for a reasonable amount of money. We’ve talked about the company’s “Adrenaline Collection” line of vehicles, but these are a step above—like a six-figure step above in some cases.

Hertz Supercars will be glad to meet you at the airport with a vehicle from its stables, and some of the options include marques that you’ve only dreamt about. Options from Rolls Royce, Bentley, Ferrari—and even McLaren—are all available for the taking, but obviously you’re going to need some serious coin to pick up one of these vehicles. Oh—you also need to reside over in the UK, as this is exclusively an English option for the immediate future.

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Car Sharing / Cars / Rental Cars / Autolib / Paris Travel / Green Travel / Velib / → All Tags

Autolib. It's Like Paris' Velib Bike Sharing, Just with Cars.

Back in October we heard that bike-sharing was turning into car-sharing thanks to the Velib spin-off—Autolib. Initially the rental cars were part of a test run, but the program has been pretty popular and now it’s time to go all-in.

The plan is to eventually add more than 3,000 emission-free cars to the streets of Paris, but for now new cars will be added each and every week. The system works just like the bikes—with a slight increase in cost—and you can pick your car up in one location and drop it off in another. The cars are all battery powered, but the Bluecar electric vehicles should be able to spin around for at least 150 miles before requiring another fill up of electricity.

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Awesome Stuff / Vintage Travel / Retro Travel / Cars / Airplanes / Design Travel / Private Jets / → All Tags

GM's XP-21 Firebird: The 1954 Idea of a Hybrid Car

Sometimes, as lame as it may sound, it's worth it to "go antiquing" because then, while digging through a drawer full of vintage US state postcards, a gem like this emerges from the muck of history. It's a 1954 pamphlet extolling the virtues of GM's XP-21 Firebird car, the first gas turbine auto ever built.

The design of the car is heavily jet-influenced; in addition to the little wings, vertical stabilizer and single cockpit driver's seat, the Firebird even has flaps in the rear to aid in braking after the car would hopefully hit high speeds. Unfortunately the thing has never been driven beyond 100mph because it was just too darn unsafe to do so.

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Mickey Mouse Drives a Ferrari (and Some Lamborghinis, Too)

For those looking for something a little more intense and riveting than Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, there’s a new option at Walt Disney World to fulfill the need for speed.

The "Exotic Driving Experience" is set to debut at the Walt Disney World Speedway in January 2012, and it looks to connect tourists with the machines of their dreams. Leave the minivan back at home, because it’s all about exotic super cars here. In total there are six different automobiles from which to choose, including options from Audi, Porsche, and a few different beasts from Ferrari and Lamborghini.

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Photo Gallery / Retro Travel / Vintage Travel / Cars / Pan Am / → All Tags

Up Close with the Vintage Cars of ABC's 'Pan Am'

In case you can't get enough of the retro appeal of ABC's show "Pan Am," we did a little friendly spying on the NYC set recently and returned with some great photos. Sure, the wardrobe is great and the sets are unbelievable (literally, since they're mostly green screen), but the cars are something else entirely. They're real! They're registered historic vehicles and everything!

Although we didn't spy any of the cast shooting outdoors, we did manage to capture some nice angles of the cars that co-star in the TV series.

Enjoy:

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Rental Cars / Cars / Car Sharing / RelayRides / → All Tags

RelayRides, Like the Airbnb of Cars, Gets a Boost from General Motors

There’s all kinds of options when it comes to rental cars and car sharing, but one of the most interesting new options has to be borrowing a car from a complete stranger. We’ve mentioned this before, but it looks like the idea is getting a little bit of momentum. It certainly doesn’t hurt that General Motors is now getting in on the fun, so we can all look forward to more broken down rental cars—we’re kidding GM, that’s the PT Cruiser’s job!

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Isle of Man Field Trip / Isle of Man Travel / Island Travel / Britain Travel / Photo Gallery / Sports Travel / Racing / Rental Cars / Cars / Road Trips / → All Tags

A Weekend on the Isle of Man: Driving a Mountain Race Circuit Without Speed Limits

The Isle of Man is a mysterious place, a nearly sovereign territory out in the middle of the choppy Irish Sea between England and Ireland. What sort of people live there? What's there to see and do? These are all questions we wanted to answer, so we went ourselves...because why not? All this week we'll be sharing our experiences in this curious island destination.

Step off the jet catamaran ferry from Liverpool onto the pier in Isle of Man's capital of Douglas, and you'll immediately figure out why so many people enjoy venturing out to this island and especially with their cars and motorcycles: it's home to one of the most prestigious street race circuits in the world, a mountain course celebrated each year with a motorcycle race called the TT (Tourist Trophy).

The Isle of Man TT happens in late May or early June each year, and though our visit fell with about ten more months to go until the next one, TT souvenirs and flags were everywhere. The famous Manx roads—"Manx" is the word for anything Isle of Man-ish—are a year-round attraction, and you know we weren't leaving without some time spent on the race-striped curves and speed limitless roads. That's right—there's no speed limit in some parts of the island!

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Car Sharing / Cars / Rental Cars / Autolib / Paris Travel / Green Travel / → All Tags

Paris' Velib Bike Sharing Grows Up to Add Autolib Car Sharing

Late last year we heard that Paris was going to improve on its vehicle-sharing program by adding some electric cars. Well, that time is now, as it looks like Autolib—just like the Velib bikes—is ready to hit the streets.

Earlier this month the city rolled out the first couple of cars to launch the new electric car sharing system. The Bolloré BlueCars are part of a two-month trial program, but if all goes well there will be as many as 3,000 of the cars available for a quick jaunt by 2012. The initial rollout is already underway, with about 66 new cars spread across the city and its 33 rental stations.

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Miami Travel / Architecture Travel / Cars / Zaha Hadid / Herzog & de Meuron / Frank Gehry / Design Travel / → All Tags

Bienvenido a Miami...Land of Fancy Parking Garages?

Miami views from the 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage.

Unless we're talking about the impressing engineering that keeps skimpy bikini tops on man-made wonders, architecture is not a word we usually think of when we think is on the way—joining at least two other designer parking structures on the beach—we're going to have to start looking up when we stroll around South Beach.

Hadid's firm has been given $12.5 million to play with in creating the new municipal parking garage in the Collins Park neighborhood—that's near the Bass Museum, The Setai and the W South Beach. According to the Miami Herald, she will be spending the cash on her winning design in the shape of an '8'. (Significance of the number? Beats us.)

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Green Travel / Rental Cars / Cars / Road Trip Travel / Road Trips / → All Tags

A Rental Car Company That Only Has Hybrids? It's in California, Of Course.

Some of the big rental car companies have gotten on the green travel bandwagon, but now there’s a new company in the neighborhood. Out in the Los Angeles area, MPG CarRental is only doing hybrids and electric automobiles, and they’ve even got some which are way cooler than a Prius.

A few of the cheapest options we found for a weeklong rental in the upcoming weeks were around $320, for the aforementioned Prius. However, they only include 150 miles per day, so just keep that in mind if you’re planning to use the hybrid for its true road trip potential.

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