Austin Morris 1100 with free de-icer x2

Kia Sportage.

I wish!
Hmm. That would certainly have been interesting, but we'd have definitely have needed a roof rack! 😀 .... I believe that little Miss P would have complained about leg room in the back seat.
That wouldn't have surprised me at all, but I did leave a clue when I posed the question earlier: "OMG!", .... or rather, I should have said: "Oh! MG?"

At the Europcar rental desk, I was handed a contactless key fob with an MG logo on it, and outside was a hideous pale blue, "Carvana blue", I would say, MG HS. That is not what I was expecting!

So far, my experience has been that it is "not as bad as I had feared". There is adequate leg room for the driver, the luggage space is limited - the luggage area is completely filled with two medium-sized suitcases. Luckily, anticipating precisely that situation, we had packed using only two suitcases (and bringing an empty holdall in case we need more room going back), but our carry-ons had to go in the back seat. Thankfully we're not a family of four, as it would be pretty useless, or if we had each brought a suitcase.

In any case, I intend to tell Europcar, that if they think that an MG is "similar to" a VW then I won't be renting from them again.

Had the same experience with Avis at Heathrow. We got an MG SUV as similar to what we had chosen.
This MG is a Japanese manufacturer and nothing to do with the British MG brand. Horrible car. No power at all and only just took our 2 cases.
We suspect that rental companies are getting cars 'built' to their specifications, as nothing we have had the last few times we have rented been anything like a standard car you would buy in the dealership.

It's Chinese, not Japanese, and the HS I have (rented) has "SAIC Motors" molded into the edge of the headlight covers. SAIC is a Chinese state-owned corporation.

Also, legally SAIC owns the brand name for British MG sports cars - SAIC bought the rights from the liquidator of Rover Cars, as well as the production lines and equipment (which they promptly ripped out and shipped China despite reportedly promising not to do so ) when Rover Cars (the final incarnation of British Leyland) finally collapsed in the inevitable and undignified mess that it did. 😢

Don't they also own Volvo having bought Renault out?

I know the owner of Volvo is Chinese, but I don't remember and have never cared enough to look into who the owner is. ... And I wasn't aware that Renault had owned any part of Volvo. I thought that Ford had owned 100% of Volvo, and I can't imagine that Ford would have wanted a JV with Renault. 🤔

Geely bought Volvo from Ford.

Well the truth has been revealed already, but I was hoping you were going to say, a Tesla or other EV ... since you hate them so much, I assumed perhaps that's why it was a noteworthy event!

I was offered, but declined, a hybrid that was also an automatic. I would have declined either anyway.

Anyway, I am warming to the driving experience of this MG. I still hate "the idea of it", but it has taken a couple of days to learn how to get the most of the engine - keep the revs up, and shift often! 😃

If it was a small sports car, it would be great. I took it over to Monmouth and Raglan today, out on the A40 via Ross-on-Wye, and back through the Forest of Dean.

I had the opposite experience, in several ways, the first time we rented in the UK in about 2014. I didn't drive much before I got to the US, so when my wife and I booked a car for our week trip starting from Inverness airport, we booked a standard automatic. They provided us with what I think was the only automatic they had available, a Mercedes estate. I forget exactly which model, but it was much nicer than we were expecting and a lot of fun to drive along the Great Glen.

Of course, we had payback the only other time we've rented in the UK since, trying to fit a minivan around flocks of sheep in Snowdonia.

This is often an issue, I always get “upgraded” renting an automatic in UK/Europe and sometimes have to refuse because the car is worth more than $75k, which is the max my CSR card provides primary coverage for… they then have to find me act I will accept worth less than that max.

Stand corrected as to its origin .....

So it's summer 2024, and time for another Pulaski road trip. This one isn't going to be quite as visually dramatic as the one last year - we're driving from Charlotte, NC through Kentucky to Chicago, then back via Detroit and West Virginia. The plan is to visit three possible unis for little Miss P, and then visit a college friend of Mrs P, who lives just outside Detroit.

We set out this morning, almost immediately leaving interstates behind us and heading across country through Morganton, cutting across NE Tennessee and SW Virginia into Kentucky, and lunch at Rax.



Forty years ago Rax, was going head-to-head with Arby's, with around 500 locations, but after it changed hands several times, and some disastrous strategic decisions, the business went into a near terminal decline, and now has only six locations, with the one we ate at being the only location in Kentucky; four of the other five are in Ohio.

Not this part of Ohio. I have never heard of them!!! Good luck with the road trip and college visits!!