Originally Posted by
billydonn
I'm going to be traveling in Europe this summer with my road bike in a Trico case. My question is what size rental car will I need? Just me and the wife and a couple of medium suitcases, plus the Trico case, will be in the car. Since it costs more to upsize the car rental, I was hoping some experienced travelers here might offer advice. The Euro car rental places do not seem to want to guarantee the availability of a specific vehicle model, only a group which can include two or three different models.
I'm pretty sure we don't want to risk renting the smallest car available, but anyway advice on this would be appreciated. Which car will fit?
If it's just the two of you then you can gain space by folding the back seats down, as long as you've got a car that makes it easy and gives you the full space you'd expect to gain (my car lets you fold the rear seats down but due to the internal shape it's still a royal PITA to get even a single bike in the back with the seats down).
What you guys call a sedan is called a saloon in the UK, and what you guys call a station wagon is an estate car over here. Saloon cars are more likely to have issues with space in the back so probably worth avoiding those if you've got bulky luggage (some are fine, some less so).
Some of the small hatchbacks are surprisingly spacious inside. Back in the early 90s some of the smaller cars were so small inside I physically couldn't get in them at all but since then cars that appear smaller still have more space inside.
Depending on where you're going and how many miles you're expecting to drive consider a diesel car. Coming from the UK I often smirk at Americans who complain about the high price of gas - in the UK we currently pay something like £1.36 per litre of fuel. £1 = $1.55 or so so that works out about $2.10 per litre or $7.80 per US gallon.
Looking at the size of your case I'm wondering if it would fit across the back seat - perhaps not an ideal situation but could work as a fallback if you do end up with a car that's slightly smaller than you expected?
I can't say for sure as I haven't measured the insides of cars but I'd be inclined to agree with the idea that something the size of a VW Golf or Ford Focus should be big enough for you. The smallest cars could be something like a Vauxhall Corsa, possibly a Fiat 500, and I'd suspect you wouldn't get your case inside one of those.
Did you have an idea of what sort of car you'd be looking at?