Agreed! In the US there is a company that does this but they don’t have a nationwide presence: https://www.rentawreck.com/. Also in Iceland there is “Sad Car” which was great for kicking around.
In the 90s, RentAWreck at least used to be part of an operation called FixAWreck who did low cost auto repairs. I used them shortly after I'd moved and had an excellent time with the two sub-compacts they gave me while my car was in their shop.
When did you rent with SADCars? I did once in 2014, and cheaply got some small old manual beater, which was just perfect.
But I think they've "pivoted" to just another rental company since then. Looking at their website and Google maps reviews the cars now look new, and indistinguishable from what you'd get from Eurocar, Hertz etc.
I had to turn down the first car due to non-functioning wipers and a broken door handle.
Ended up with a Subaru Forester that had definitely seen a lot of miles and had its share of minor issues, but was a beast in the surprise blizzard.
Shame if they pivoted but their office was a pain to deal with and last thing you want after a red-eye is to be worried about the car maybe not actually working properly. Decided next time we'd just rent from a more established brand.
From their FAQ:
> However, we decided to use the name to make it more memorable as our cars used to be older in the beginning but it's been many years since we stopped using old cars and now all our cars are new, or one or two years old