Someone Took Their Rental Shelby GT500-H Off-Roading

We wonder if they signed up for the extra insurance?

Made famous around the world by YouTube, Hurricane, Utah-based Matt’s Off Road Recovery has pulled all kinds of vehicles out of sticky trail situations. One thing we see every so often is someone with a muscle car who didn’t understand their vehicle isn’t designed for driving over rough terrain. But a recent video is the first time we’ve ever seen a Hertz Shelby GT500-H recovered from an off-road situation.

Off-roading through New Zealand looks breathtakingly gorgeous.

As they say, there’s a first time for everything so it was only a matter of time for this to happen. Matt, who’s always so incredibly good-natured even when people do absolutely boneheaded things, remarked that he recovers Hertz rental vehicles all the time. But he didn’t say whether or not this was his first Shelby recovery.

The young guy who drove the Shelby GT500-H across a sandy stretch of ground only to find it was a horrible idea we believe is old enough to rent a car. He seems incredibly embarrassed in the video to be getting pulled out. But he also didn’t have his face blurred, although the license plate was.

We have to wonder if the rental agent at Hertz noticed anything off with the car when the guy turned it back in. Just how thoroughly do they check the 900+-horsepower muscle cars when someone returns with them? We can imagine a lot of people do absolutely bonkers things with these rides. After all, those rental Chevy Sparks weren’t exactly treated kindly, and with more power comes more stupidity when you don’t care about the car.

For this reason alone we would be cautious about buying a used rental car. Eventually these Shelby GT500-Hs will be put on the market and people will clamor to own the uniquely badged American muscle cars. We just can’t help but wonder what kinds of issues the new owners will have to endure because Hertz customers thought they had a quasi-Jeep or whatever.