Bus tour "hop on hop off" in Rome

While we are big fans of the hop on/off buses in most cities, Rome sites have a lot of pedestrian areas around the key sites and that limits how close the Rome buses can get to the main sites. Traffic can also be a problem that really slows them to a crawl. We did do the Architectural Tour bus out to the Appian Way and the catacombs on a Sunday. And that was fine. Don't know anything about golf cart tours. I would think you could do just as well on walking tour of the core sights since they are fairly close to each other.

Have you seen Rick's advice about Rome? https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/italy/rome If you expand "plan," and go to Rome Itinerary, it has a free audio tour for his Caesar Shuffle, which is a great walking tour. I would not advise spending time on a bus for the reasons a PP mentioned. Especially in summer, the HOHO buses get stuck in traffic and the lines at the bus stops just to board can be very long. You don't want to be standing around - just take a taxi. How many days in Rome do you have? Is it just one? If so, I'd do the Colosseum first thing in the morning - buy a ticket now - just the regular ticket, not the special or guided ones. Then I'd take a taxi to the Trevi Fountain. Toss in your coin, then walk to the Pantheon and end up at the PIazza Navona. Get lunch. Take a taxi to St. Peter's and hit it in the afternoon. Voila! An excellent, but full, day in Rome.

Darn we always take hop on hop off tours in cities we don’t know. I think we will rely on taxis for Rome.

....as our time in Rome is short.

Just how short will your time be?

Most of the things tourists want to see (or leave time enough to see) in Rome are in the historic center. It's a reasonably compact area and best explored, whenever possible, on foot versus any sort of transport at all. That way one can shortcut through the interesting narrow spaces and pedestrian-only places where vehicles can't go. It can actually be quicker as well when traffic levels are at their most dense!

Public transport, such as the metro, public buses (definitely NOT the hoho type for this particular city) or taxis can be useful for the longest point-to-point hops but with a map in hand, Rome will be much more FUN if seen from your own two feet.

But to answer your question about golf cart tours, here are a couple of previous threads with recommendations:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/golf-cart-tours-in-rome-for-the-elderly
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/has-anyone-taken-a-golf-cart-tour-in-rome

Scooteroma's APE CALESSINO TOUR was mentioned; here's the link:
https://scooteroma.com/tours/ape-calessino-tour/

And a couple of links for MyBestTour were sort of broken so here's that one too:
http://mybesttour.com/tour/golf-cart-tour-rome/