Vintage Limousine Rental
A limousine is, let’s face it, a status symbol. It exists to make the passengers inside look richer, more successful, and more powerful than they actually are – or, in a few rare cases, as rich, successful, and powerful as they actually are. A limousine is for appearances.
Now, we’ve decided that limos exist in order to make people look better, and are looked at as a status symbol. It follows logically, then, that limos are there to change your “image,” or whom you appear to be to other people. Therefore, if you take it for granted that limousines are there to change how you look, then it would make sense that using different kinds of limousines would have radically different effects on how you appear to other people. There’s a big difference in appearance and projected “image,” for example, between the standard black stretch sedan and a stretch hummer, or even between a white limo and a black one.
What if you want to project a different image from any of those relatively standard limousine choices? What if, say, you want to project an image of the classic elegance of the earlier years of the automobile industry? If that sounds like a good idea to you, you may be interested in renting or buying a vintage limousine. Vintage limousine rentals are especially valuable as tools because there’s a good chance you won’t always want to portray the kind of image a vintage limousine will portray – not to mention having to deal with the extra trouble in repairing and maintaining it, should it break down – so it might be better to just rent a vintage limousine for a very specific event or occasion and thus use the image without having to pay the full price of actually buying a vintage limousine.
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What types of situations might be occasions to portray the kind of image you present by riding in a vintage limousine? Well, there are actually several, depending on your personal point of view and preference in these sorts of matters. Really, almost any formal event can be the perfect occasion to rent a vintage limousine and arrive at the show in style. What might otherwise be a relatively normal and typical wedding can be given an added flair of charm by giving it a historical theme – and, in this case, a historical theme that includes vintage limousine rentals as part of the wedding entourage.
There are plenty of other opportunities, of course. Say you have a prom themed to the fifties or sixties. It’s a fairly simple thing to go out and rent a vintage limousine – assuming, of course, that you have the money to do so – and show up at the prom with you and your date in the back, and make an impression your classmates will remember for the rest of their lives. If you’re going to go through all the trouble of renting the tux, buying the dress, and paying for all the other accoutrements needed for a good prom date, you might as well go all the way and shell out the dough to rent a good vintage limousine and ride in style.
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Of course, there is more to using limos than simply going on dates and impressing other people with how you look. Another part of that image idea is one that is often overlooked by many would be limousine renters - the idea that sometimes, other people’s images may be more important to you than even your own.
Let’s take a hypothetical situation. You work for a small company – or even a successful Fortune 500 company – and you are preparing to entertain a very important client or guest. The client’s jet is flying in at three in the afternoon, and your preliminary research has turned up the fact that she is a big fan of the mid-1900’s – what better way to impress her than to simply rent a vintage limousine and send it out to the airport to pick her up? By doing that, you end up making her look better, as well as making her more friendly towards you and your company. Remember, by making your clients look better, you make it more likely that more clients – and higher profile clients – will turn to you when they need help in the future. The better you treat business acquaintances, the more profit and the more connections you can hope to glean from your ventures – and there’s no better way to treat them better than with a vintage limousine.
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So far, we’ve talked a lot about vintage limousines in general, and how they can provide you with a sense of that sort of Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart classic charm that has been so largely lost in the world of modern sleek technology. But, what do we really mean by all these things? What, really, exactly are vintage limousines, and how do you come by them? We’ll discuss renting vintage limousines later in this article, but for now let’s simply look at what makes a good limousine “vintage.”
The basic requirement, of course, for something to be “vintage” is for it to be old. Thus, a vintage limousine is an old model. Of course, if something looks its age, it’s not vintage, it’s just old – “vintage” means something brought out of the past as if it were the present. A vintage limousine, then, is an old model that is in pristine condition and looks just as beautiful now as it did when it first rolled off the blocks sixty years ago. That can be very hard to do right, which is why so many refurbishers and automobile enthusiasts work so hard to get these vintage limousines into the shape they are in today.
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The grand old king of vintage limousines – and modern limousines, to be more general – is, of course, the signature British car manufacturer – Rolls Royce. The company’s quality is so high that, these days, Rolls Royce has become almost synonymous with good craftsmanship, luxury, money, and the kind of quality wealthy car buyers the world over have come to expect.
In the past, as now, a great many of the top limousines were manufactured by Rolls Royce, so a great majority of the vintage limousines you may have access to will in fact be Rolls Royce vehicles. There are only a handful of other names that are in direct competition with Rolls Royce, and that share its aura of quality and mechanical perfection. Packard, Century, Bentley, and Austin Princess are a few of these, and all are names you’re likely to see if you’re looking into renting a good vintage limousine.
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Vintage limousine rentals aren’t really restricted to any one era or time period in the history of automobiles, but generally imply a make or model at least forty or fifty years old. There are a wide range of vintage limousines available for the vintage limo connoisseur, of course – limos to emulate every era from the birth of the luxury auto industry in the twenties and thirties to the sleek, visible class of the sixties.
There are plenty of limousines out there, and their styles will vary greatly depending on the time period they came from. If you want to pick the perfect limousine, it might be a good idea to do some research before you go, browsing image libraries and the like to find the limousine that projects precisely the image you’re looking for. You can get truly ancient vehicles, for instance, like the 1927 Packard models or a 1935 Rolls Royce. You can also get the flashier limos of the sixties, like the 1964 Austin Princess model or the classic 1961 Bentley.
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The question now, of course, is where you go to get these great rentals. What sort of a limousine rental company would specialize in old classic limousines like these? The obvious answer, of course, is a vintage limousine rental service. Take a look around, and make sure you examine your yellow pages very carefully. Call around to compare rates, availability, models, chauffeur experience, and everything else you might need when trying to hire a good rental limousine. Remember, the more you know about your subject before you start looking, the more likely you’ll be to find a good deal in the end when you’re finally ready to go out and rent it.
The Internet can also be an absolutely invaluable tool. In modern society, nearly every major company – including vintage limousine rental companies – advertises their wares or services online – right down from what they offer to what they charge to all the little details you would have so much trouble researching, were this part of the good old days of pen and paper and no computers at all. The Internet can be phenomenally useful if you use it right, so don’t hesitate to begin looking online now for the next great deal.
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In nearly every case, you’ll probably be better off just renting a good vintage limousine, rather than trying to buy one for your own personal experience. For one thing, it’s often difficult to even find someone who’s interested in selling a limousine, even with the added help of today’s Internet technology. It will be a long time before someone hangs a “limousine for sale” listing on Craig’s List.
Second, limousines are very expensive. Even if you can find a place willing to sell a limousine, you’ll have difficulty actually paying for one – a good limousine can cost as much as a small house – or a large house, if you live in North Dakota. Prices for good vintage limousines often range from around twenty or thirty thousand dollars to around one hundred and forty for a top quality, perfect condition Rolls Royce.
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The only question you have left is, why rent instead of buy? The main reason, of course, is one we’ve already discussed – it’s obviously quite a lot easier to rent a limousine than to go out and pay the full price for one. Renting a limousine for a wedding, a prom, a birthday, or any number of other occasions in which you might actually want a limousine means that you only pay for that specific time. Chances are, too, that if you actually want a limousine, you’d rather go with a more modern one, with all the up-to-date amenities. Still, there’s just something classic about the grand old vintage limousines of the fifties and sixties, and they’re certainly worth renting once or twice just for the experience.
So, as always, make sure you know what you want before you start looking. If you go into the search with a definite goal in mind, you can make sure that you get the best product for your price with an absolute minimum of hassle and trouble. Just look and research and find out your options – are there any specific brands which you’d like to experience, or any specific era which you’d like to emulate? How much are you willing to pay? If you have all this information at hand when you start looking, you’ll be far more likely to get exactly what you want at a reasonable cost. Why not start looking today, and see if you can’t learn a little bit more about vintage limousines and the vast amount of enjoyment and pleasure you can get by renting them for those special occasions.
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