# Inverness, Highland

URL: https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/car-hire/inverness

Performance & Prestige has no depot, branch or rental counter in Inverness and holds no premises there. Every lease is delivered to an address you choose and collected from it afterwards.

Inverness is the last city before the roads get genuinely interesting, and an agreement taken here is usually about what lies north and west of it rather than about the city itself. We deliver to houses along the Ness, to Culloden, Balloch, Westhill and Milton of Leys, to hotel forecourts in the middle of town, and out along the firth to Nairn, Beauly, Dingwall and the Black Isle. At the end of the term we collect from wherever you have finished, which is often not where the car started. The one fact that shapes every delivery this far north is the length of the road in, and we would rather talk about that openly than pretend distance is nothing. We hold no premises in Inverness or anywhere else in Scotland, so there is nothing to travel to and no counter standing between you and the car.

Typical delivery: Two things set the window here and neither is the postcode. The first is the approach: the A9 is the only sensible road in, it crosses high ground at Drumochter and Slochd, and in winter either can slow or close with little notice. The second is the address itself, because a controlled bay on a city street is a different job from a house at the end of a single-track lane above the firth. Somebody looks at both, puts a window to you, and it holds once you have agreed it.

Tell us two things before the day. The first is what the last mile holds. Single-track with passing places, a cattle grid at the field boundary, a steep gravel apron or a farm gate each change how the car arrives, and a covered transporter cannot turn on most Highland lanes, so the final stretch is nearly always driven. The second is where the car will live for the term. The middle of Inverness has ordinary controlled parking and almost everywhere else has a drive, so the overnight answer is usually straightforward, but it is better settled at booking than at ten at night. If your road is unsurfaced, say so. It changes which car we would suggest rather than whether we come.

Postcode areas covered: IV.

## Is the North Coast 500 a realistic thing to do in a car like this?

It is, with the right expectations. The route is a name laid over ordinary public roads, and long stretches of the north and west are single track with passing places, blind summits and no run-off at all. It rewards a calm pace and punishes a hurried one, and the people living along it are going to work rather than sightseeing. Fuel, food and phone signal all thin out once you are past the bigger towns. Done over several days in the shoulder season it is one of the best drives in Europe. Done in three days in August it is a queue with a view.

## What do single-track roads ask of a wide car?

More restraint than most drivers expect. The convention is that you pull into the passing place on your left, or stop opposite the one on your right, and you let faster local traffic through rather than leading a queue. The verges are soft and frequently hide a ditch, so a wheel put off the edge does not simply come back on. Loose chippings collect at the road's edge and at the mouth of every passing place, which is where paintwork and wheels get marked. Blind summits are the real hazard: assume something is coming and you will be right often enough to matter.

## Where does fuel run out in the Highlands?

Sooner than the map suggests. North and west of the main towns the stations are far apart, several close in the evening, and some keep shorter hours on a Sunday, so the assumption that something will be open further on is the one that strands people. A performance car pressed on good roads returns single-figure miles per gallon, which shortens the range you think you have by a surprising amount. Fill up at the last sizeable town before committing to a long loop rather than at the point the gauge starts to worry you.

## Do Scotland's low emission zones affect a trip from Inverness?

There is no such zone in Inverness. The Scottish schemes sit in the four cities to the south, they apply to cars rather than only to buses and vans, and each has its own boundary, so a trip taking in more than one crosses more than one scheme. Modern petrol performance cars meet the standards in the ordinary course, but we confirm the position for the exact vehicle before you commit rather than after. Enforcement is camera-based and attaches to the vehicle, so it is worth settling as part of the booking. You are told which charges we deal with and which are billed on.

## What do these roads want from you in winter?

Shorter days and lower expectations. Daylight in December runs out by mid-afternoon, so a route that works in June is half finished by dark. Passes hold ice in shade long after the glens have thawed, and the A9 and A82 both close for snow in a hard week. Performance tyres go hard well before the road looks slippery. Deer come down to the roadside at dusk and are a genuine hazard rather than a picturesque one. None of that is a reason to avoid a winter term up here, and all of it is a reason to plan the day around the light.

## Do you deliver beyond the city, and what about the islands?

Nairn, Forres, Dingwall, Muir of Ord, the Black Isle, Aviemore, Grantown, Fort William, Ullapool and the west coast villages are all part of the same run, and a remote address changes the planning rather than the answer. Send the postcode with a line about the last mile. Delivery here and collection in Perthshire, Edinburgh or further south sits inside one arrangement rather than two. If an island is part of your plan, the ferry operator takes vehicle reservations separately and summer sailings fill a long way ahead, so that is a booking to make early and in your own name.

*Pre-launch note: the driver criteria, deposits, excesses and mileage allowances quoted here are read from Performance & Prestige's own catalogue data, which is still being confirmed with the owner and the insurer. Read them as the shape of the figures rather than as a quotation. What binds is your written quote and your agreement.*