Back in the day, the Hertz rental car agency famously rented out Shelby Mustangs to weekend warriors and leadfoots across the country. Hertz has restarted this great tradition in the past few years with the Hertz Adrenaline Collection, which includes muscle cars like the Chevrolet Camaro SS. Hertz charges a premium to rent these cars, but many would agree the upgrade from a Camaro V6 to a Camaro SS is well worth it.
Well, so long as you actually get a Camaro SS. As reported by our buddies at GM Authority, a customer recently rented a Camaro SS from a Hertz agency in Hawaii, but after getting the feeling that something was amiss, the customer found out that his Camaro SS was actually a well-equipped Camaro LT. That means rather than a 6.2 liter V8, the Camaro had a 3.6 liter V6. Not cool.
Indeed, it doesn’t take much time behind the wheel to figure out there isn’t a loud-and-mean LS V8 engine under the hood. As the understandably irate customer goes on to document with his camera, the registration clearly indicates (via the VIN number) that the car has a V6 engine. Yet Hertz charged the customer $240 for the Camaro SS convertible rental.
Then he gets out of the car, walks around, and shows us the SS badge on the rear end. Yet the SS badge and the hood scoop are missing from the front of the car. Then he pops the hood, and sure as hell, it’s a V6 Camaro. Hertz did refund the customer the extra money he paid for the Camaro SS, but then did not have a Camaro SS to give to him in its place.
While this scenario doesn’t look good for Hertz, it could be as simple as some jokester applying a SS badge to the back of a Camaro he rented to impress his teenage friends. Then, Hertz never figured it out and ended up renting the car out to other people. Let’s hope this was just an honest mistake.