Car hire - northern Italy or Switzerland

[JetskiJezz]

I trying to plan a bit of a road trip for me and a couple of friends to head down to Switzerland and northern Italy to go and play around the various mountain passes.
I'm trying to look at various options including the obvious drive from the UK down there taking whatever cars we got to hand, but we're all very busy and so it's been suggested we fly down and hire something fun for about 5 days.
I'm going to be on a restricted budget due to financial restrictions of one of the guys were going with so unfortunately can't hire something exotic.

I'm trying to find somewhere over in that sort of region where I can pick up something fun and relatively cheap. I keep coming across all the big hire companies but most of their car are boring diesel or even worse boring diesel and French.............

I was kind of hoping that we might be able to pickup a couple of MX5's

If anyone's got any experience or can point me in the right direction I would be grateful.

[Hackney]

Didn't someone do something similar in Fiat 500s?
In a group it could be a hoot.

[JetskiJezz]

I would certainly consider a little fiat 500, again it's just where to hire one from that seems to be eluding me at the moment.
We haven't got any destinations booked so more than happy to fly into whichever area is best to be able to open up our choice of cars or car hire companies.
Happy to consider flying into Germany and then driving down into Switzerland, or even into Italy and driving back up to Switzerland.

Last year we flew down to the south of France with the intention of staying in that area, on the second day we decided to drive up to the stalvio pass and was so impressed with the area we think will go straight back to that region this time.

[Borghetto]

I rented a Fiat500 from Hertz at Pisa airport. It didn't seem to expensive and Hertz allowed you to select the Fiat, rather than offering a group and then palming you off with something boring. Pisa has plenty of cheap flights from Luton. The 500 is a scream to drive.

[Halmyre]

JetskiJezz said:

I trying to plan a bit of a road trip for me and a couple of friends to head down to Switzerland and northern Italy to go and play around the various mountain passes.
I'm trying to look at various options including the obvious drive from the UK down there taking whatever cars we got to hand, but we're all very busy and so it's been suggested we fly down and hire something fun for about 5 days.
I'm going to be on a restricted budget due to financial restrictions of one of the guys were going with so unfortunately can't hire something exotic.

I'm trying to find somewhere over in that sort of region where I can pick up something fun and relatively cheap. I keep coming across all the big hire companies but most of their car are boring diesel or even worse boring diesel and French.............

I was kind of hoping that we might be able to pickup a couple of MX5's

If anyone's got any experience or can point me in the right direction I would be grateful.

I booked a compact class through AutoEurope, which usually gets you a Fiat Brava in Italy; the supplier was Europcar and I got an upgrade to an Alfa Giulietta. Which was nice, even though it was an oil-burner.

[Allyc85]

Travel Supermarket is worth a look for comparing prices.

http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/cheap-car-hire/

Im flying to Geneva in September for 4 days driving, and the above website is far cheaper than what Easyjet quote you through Europcar.