Which car to take on a road trip from salt lake through bryce, grand canyon to San F. and LA.?

We are 2 european going on a road trip starting in salt lake city and going south to bryce and grand canyon to hike and then through death valley and up to SF and along the coastline to LA. My question is which car would you recommend?
Extra info: We may want to sleep in the car for to or 3 nights.
The trip is in june, so it will be hot.
We have to rent the car through holiday auto.

Hope someone can give some advise.
Thanks.

What are your choices?
Having lived in the area and driven all of those roads my personal choice and a car that I've owned and driven on those roads would be a Mercury Grand Marquis.
Here's an image of one
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3D2009%2520Mercury%2520Grand%2520Marquis%26SpellState%3Dn-1202829140_q-fhuqjQ0gdBlPTfmWoJMdVQAAAA%2540%2540%26fr2%3Dtab-web&w=960&h=430&imgurl=www.mercuryvehicles.com%2Fgrandmarquis%2Fimg%2Fgrandmarquis_ext_360.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mercuryvehicles.com%2Fgrandmarquis%2Fgallery_ext_360.asp&size=134.7kB&name=grandmarquis_ext_360.jpg&p=2009+Mercury+Grand+Marquis&type=JPG&oid=5c8cfa7be1574ca0&no=6&tt=50&sigr=11va7n32t&sigi=121agj9n8&sigb=14v4om3k7
It's a big comfortable rear wheel drive vehicle with a huge trunk , a small block V-8 [ 4.6 ] that burns regular gas , will get 27 mpg at highway speeds and will run all and night & day at 90 mph
A side advantage for you guys is that it has a split bench front seat so if you kick up the arm rests one of you can sleep in the front seat and one of you can sleep in the back.
A Ford Crown Victoria is basically the same vehicle in a less luxurious form > i.e.No leather
As far as your routing goes I really think that at the very least you should add Capitol Reef & Zion NP to your list
Try this for starts
SLC >Torey UT >Escalante UT> Hurricane UT >
Colorado City AZ>North Rim AZ> GCN> Kingman AZ >CA I-40 exit 78
http://www.nps.gov/moja
>Baker CA> Furnace Creek CA>Lee Vining CA>El Portal CA >SFO
Btw 1
You do realize that the Inner Gorge of the Canyon is going to be hotter than Hell in June don't you?
Btw2 If precip isn't an issue you can just drive down a desert road pull over somewhere remote and spend the night sleeping under the stars w/o walls
Enjoy the West
Updates
1)I've hiked almost everything in the Canyon that NPS describes as a Trail and a couple of things that NPS describes as a Route >If you have any questions , just drop me a line
2) Speaking of NPS ; If you're going to be visiting more than 3.5 National Parks one of these comes in really handy
http://www.nps.gov/fees_passes.htm
Btw >the photo on the Pass is of Nankoweap Ruins looking down River
3) As far as either sleeping in vehicles or racking out under the stars goes; while I don't do it in anything even remotely resembling civilized areas in remote areas of America I have done it many times w/ no problems at all.
4) As far as vehicles go I'm going to say that over half of your journey will not be driven on Interstate Highways [ which I've indicated by using the letter "I " in my descriptions] You will be spending a lot of time driving on the high-speed mostly 2 lane US highways of the West where the ability to pass another vehicle quickly is a huge asset.In addition many of those roads involve a lot of up and down climbing >another good reason to have sufficient power under foot .
One of the reasons that I'm a little leery about suggesting SUVs and mini-vans is because I've seen far too many of them upside down. There are three primary causes for that to happen
1) Snapping back into a lane when doing a short high speed pass
2)Entering a decreasing radius turn with too much initial speed
3) The Venturi Effect which is what happens when you come thru a narrow pass and get slammed by an unexpected crosswind upon exiting it ,There's a spot on I-17 N leaving Phoenix that probably flips at least one or two vehicles a week
Lastly this trip is a lot easier to do if you do it in a counterclockwise direction i.e SLC>SFO >LAX
Doing so will allow you to pick up and drop off your car at the same location >much cheaper
It will also allow you to visit one of my favorite" looks like another planet "places in America which is Bonneville Salt Flats >UT , I-80 W to the NV/UT stateline

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