Your Rental Needs May Vary

Avis Airlines Rent-A-Car System was founded in 1946 by Warren Avis (1915-2007), an owner of an automobile dealership in Detroit. He had the idea of providing car-rental services at airports, astutely believing air travel would quickly become more popular than rail travel. They were the first car rental business to be located at an airport, opening two locations at Willow Run Airport near Detroit and at Miami Airport in Florida. He established branch operations across the United States over the next few years and became the second-largest car rental company in the country by 1953. 

In 1962, their corporate slogan, "We're only No. 2. We try harder," was a positive campaign to compete with the number one competitor, Hertz. Today, Avis is a provider to the commercial segment, serving business travelers at major airports internationally, and to leisure travelers at off-airport locations. Avis featured General Motors vehicles during the late 1970s, but Ford vehicles were showcased prior, as the above 1958 advertisement proves. Other popular brands comprise their fleet today. Avis has been owned by a number of other companies, along with several periods of being a public company.

Executive Leasing Company and its fleet of seven vehicles were founded eleven years after Avis by Jack Crawford Taylor (1922-2016) in St. Louis, Missouri.   Taylor was a naval aviator during World War II, serving on the USS Enterprise. In 1969, he would rename the company Enterprise Rent-A-Car to honor the aircraft carrier and reflect his personal values and leadership philosophy. The company focused on city-based rentals rather than competing with airport-centric rental firms for persons needing a rental while their own was being repaired. A wise strategy that helped the business grow steadily.

Their iconic "e" highway logo was introduced early on, but went through a few color and design changes before settling on their classic green and black color scheme. In the early 1970s, the "We'll pick you up" tagline was introduced, a unique service that became a trademark of their customer-centric approach. This service, along with partnerships with auto repair shops, helped Enterprise build a strong city-based "neighborhood" network. The leadership has been passed down through generations of the Taylor family. Enterprise eventually embraced Avis's airport innovation in the early years of the twenty-first century after acquiring the Vanguard Car Rental Group, National Car Rental, and Alamo Rent-A-Car brands to its portfolio. 

Putting You in Your Rightful Place

The Hertz Corporation is the world's largest car rental company, handling more than 30 million rentals worldwide with approximately 6,500 locations in more than 140 countries and a fleet of 550,000 vehicles, including 300,000 vehicles in the United States alone. 

In 1918, Walter Jacobs, the twenty-two-year-old pioneer of auto renting, began his Ford rental business with only twelve Model-Ts in Chicago. He sold the company to John D. Hertz in 1923 but remained a prominent figure in the company until his retirement more than fifty years later. In 1925, Hertz pioneered a coast-to-coast car rental network. Together, Jacobs and Hertz swiftly turned the small company into a well-known brand, Hertz Car Rental. By 1932, Chicago's Midway Hertz became the first car rental company to open an airport rental service at Chicago Midway Airport. Hertz was generating annual revenues of about $1 million. General Motors would later buy out Hertz's Yellow Cab Manufacturing Company, renaming the car rental portion of the business the Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System.

Hertz's iconic advertising slogan through the Sixties was developed by the Norman, Craig & Kummel agency in 1959. The television ads were famous for their gravity-defying visuals of a driver being placed magically in the driver's seat (always a convertible) from mid-air. The added jingle, "Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat," was sung by the expansive vocal range of the a cappella quartet, The Hi-Lo's. It ranks among the "Top 100 Advertising Campaigns of the Century" by Advertising Age magazine. It would appear, however, that Avis Rent-a-Car beat Hertz to the concept by about a year, judging by this just-released 1958 Ford pictured at left. Avis was the first to establish an airport-centric idea for vehicle rentals.

Note: Through its subsidiary Hertz Equipment Rental Corporation, the company also rents construction and industrial equipment to contractors and industrial and government markets. Hertz's Claim Management Corporation subsidiary is a leading third-party administrator, while Hertz Technologies, Inc., provides telecommunications services to corporations. Hertz Local Edition specializes in providing vehicles to the insurance community and auto dealers.