Let’s say you’re a little tired of the ole’ family mini-van. Or that Honda Accord with 140,000 miles on it. Our Savvy Traveler, Rudy Maxa, tells us you can rent your dream car – for a price. Oh, by the way – that Accord with all the miles on it? That’s what he drives.

Once – just once – I put on the dog. I was headed to the Napa Valley Wine Auction, and I got something in the mail from Budget Rent-a-Car saying I could rent a new Jaguar sedan for about $70 a day at selected locations. Turns out San Francisco airport was one of those locations, so I splurged. Accustomed to driving generic Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles when I rent, I felt quite prosperous tooling across the Golden Gate Bridge.

As it turns out, I was just a bit player in the exclusive field of luxury car rentals. 70 bucks a day seemed like a lot of money until the day I exited the freeway in Los Angeles right by the Marketplace world headquarters. There was a huge billboard with color pictures of a Ferrari and a Lamborghini. If I called Shuki International, promised the billboard, I could rent that Lamborghini for only $499 a day plus $20 a mile. With a minimum of 50 miles a day. Which actually works out to fifteen-hundred dollars a day. Who rents these things?

I stopped by the Budget Rent A Car office in Beverly Hills. They’ve got a big parking lot filled with Mercedes, Porches, Jags, and other premium cars. Susie Iott, the manager, told me mostly studios and photographers rent the high end cars, like the Porshe Boxer for $300 a day. But, yes, she said, so do individuals, but she was tight-lipped about who might rent such expensive cars and why.

Shuki was much more talkative when I called him. He says regular folks–almost always men - rent them, too, for only one reason: To impress someone. Mostly a woman. Sometimes business types. He was pretty graphic about why a man would rent a car to impress a woman, and when I asked him what happens on the second date, he said by then it didn’t matter.

Let me rush to add that your regular car insurance or your credit card does not cover insurance if you wreck one of those high-end cars. Check the small print even if you’re only renting something as modest as a Jaguar or SUV. In the case of the real expensive wheels, you’ll have to have a letter from your insurance company saying you’re covered for the afternoon you’re going to drive that Lamborghini to the golf course to wow potential investors in your latest real estate deal. That insurance will cost about $100 a day or so.

The good news is, renting a thousand-dollar-a-day car is as tax deductible as a $30-a-day car if it’s used for business purposes. Just try putting one on your expense account, though.

I’m Rudy Maxa from the Savvy Traveler for Marketplace.