When it comes to expensive cars, Edward Douglas has commitment issues.

Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins, Bentleys — he has the urge to swap them as often as most drivers fill their gas tanks.

“My friends tease me for having a short attention span,” said Douglas, 39, who owns a Porsche and Mercedes but finds himself flipping through Automobile Magazine thinking, “What’s next?”

That’s why Douglas, who heads a wire and cable manufacturing company in Randolph, prefers to rent the ritzy cars instead of owning them.

For a fee of $29,000 a year, he can have access to a dozen exotic cars at the Vulcan Motor Club in Chester — a fair price, he said, considering his choices include new releases like the $495,000 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and the $100,000-plus electric Tesla Roadster.

While the rest of the auto industry struggles, the high-end car rental industry appears to be gathering speed in New Jersey, where at least a handful of exotic-car clubs and their multimillion-dollar fleets are headquartered. Company owners say a growing number of consumers are renting the sleek, glossy vehicles for joyrides and daylong outings.

“We’re in a renter’s market,” said Vulcan co-founder Tom Mizzone, who estimates business is up 60 percent this year and the number of annual members has grown to nearly 100.

Exotic car clubs charge either by a single-day rate, ranging from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, or by membership, a timeshare-like arrangement that costs $10,000 to $50,000 for 20 to 80 driving days a year.

That makes them attractive to a surprisingly wide swath of customers, from casual drivers to car aficionados, who drive the brightly colored exotics to country clubs, Manhattan theatres, Atlantic City casinos and Cape Cod beaches.

Tom McDermott is one such customer. The 46-year-old photographs boats and runs a helicopter training school, where he owns 25 helicopters. But when it comes to exotic cars, he prefers to rent.

The owner of five Ferraris over the years, McDermott quickly learned that while helicopters usually appreciate in value, cars almost always depreciate. Exotics are costly and time-consuming to maintain, with insurance and repairs adding up to several thousand dollars a year — a scraped bumper alone can cost $400 to repaint.

They attract a lot of unwanted attention from curious passersby, making it impractical to drive them every day. And, like computers, once you invest in one, there’s always a newer, sleeker, faster one.

He said he would rather pay $20,000 a year to cruise around in any of 20 new cars — valued at a total of more than $4 million — offered by Gotham Dream Cars. The Hasbrouck Heights company has seen a 15 percent jump in business volume to about 80 rentals a month.

McDermott’s favorite ride? The fire-red Ferrari F430 Spider convertible, which can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.1 seconds. Inside, the tan leather interior is so supple it can be easily marred by the slightest brush with a key or cell phone.

“You get a sense of happiness driving it,” he said.

Still, he craves variety. “It’s like if every night you have lobster, you might say, hey, I want to try a hamburger instead,” said McDermott, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who rents from the club’s two locations in New Jersey and Florida.

So, on a recent afternoon, McDermott took part in the club’s “Legend” tour, a $1,500 afternoon event during which drivers in six cars travel as a caravan along back-country roads and winding mountain passes. Every half hour, they pull over and swap cars until everyone has had a chance to test out each car.

“It’s like wine tasting,” he said.

JERRY MCCREA/THE STAR-LEDGER
Bryan Zagaro of Teaneck familiarizes himself with the dashboard controls for the 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo at Vulcan Motors in Chester.
CHANGING NEEDS

Like the cars they crave, the industry’s clients come in a variety of molds. There are newlyweds and other one-off customers, like Victoria Kennedy, who once surprised her husband, Sen. Edward Kennedy, on his birthday by renting an Aston Martin Vanquish from Gotham — the car James Bond drove in “Die Another Day.”

Others are would-be buyers who are hesitant about buying an exotic car that could fall steeply in value during a time when the economy is shaky.

“People are becoming commitment-phobic,” said Noah Lehmann-Haupt, the founder of Gotham. “They don’t want to sign a lease for five or six years. A lot of people don’t know what the world will bring them.”

Then there are the “ultra-affluent” consumers, generally people with inherited wealth for whom several thousand dollars is “chump change,” said Scott Rothbort, a professor of finance at Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business. “These are people who will drink champagne out of glass slippers,” he said.

Perhaps the biggest chunk of business, however, belongs to the class of “aspirational” consumers, who come and go as industries rise and fall. They pass through the exotic car business like it’s a revolving door — entering when they’re flush with cash, exiting when their finances dwindle.

“One year it’s Wall Street mortgage brokers, the next year it’s oil and gas tycoons,” Rothbort said.

These days, those customers at Gotham include entrepreneurs, a bill collector, an anti-piracy software developer and a building contractor who got a boost from the economic stimulus, Lehmann-Haupt said. “The reality is, even in a recession, there’s always someone doing well,” he said.

A NEW KIND OF CLIENT

Meanwhile, at Xotic Dream Cars in Toms River, owner Deric Tikotsky said business has soared 250 percent year-over-year, in part because the recession has ushered in a new kind of client: Former exotic-car owners who were forced to sell the vehicles after losing their money in the stock market.

“They’re selling off their cars, they’re selling off their boats and they’ve started renting because they don’t want to lose that lifestyle,” he said.

In these tough economic times, however, clients are trying to enjoy that kind of lifestyle with more discretion, so as not to appear insensitive. In recent months, Douglas, the wire and cable manufacturer, has avoided driving the glitzy rentals to work because “it wouldn’t appear proper to my employees.” Instead, he opts for his Porsche 911 Turbo or Mercedes minivan.

And yet, for those who can afford it, resisting an exotic simply because there is a recession takes backseat to the adrenaline rush that comes from having all that horsepower, speed and luxury at their fingertips, Lehmann-Haupt said.

“People still feel the need for an escape,” he said. “It’s exhausting not to spend money.”

Leslie Kwoh may be reached at lkwoh@starledger.com or (973) 392-4147.