Avis Car Rental History

Avis Rent a Car System, LLC is a car rental company headquartered in Parsippany-Troy Hills Township, New Jersey, United States. Avis, Budget Rent a Car and Budget Truck Rental are all units of Avis Budget Group.

Avis Budget Group operates the Avis brand in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, India, Australia and New Zealand. In other parts of the world, the Avis brand is operated by Avis Europe plc, a separate company which licenses the Avis brand from Avis Budget Group. All together, Avis currently has over 4000 branch offices worldwide. Avis is one of the largest car rental agencies in the world.
The company features General Motors (GM) vehicles such as Chevrolet and Cadillac, but also rents popular non-GM brands including Ford and Toyota.
Avis is a leading rental car provider to the commercial segment serving business travelers at major airports around the world, and to leisure travelers at off-airport locations. Many of the off-airport locations are franchised operations rather than company-owned and -operated, as is the case with most airport locations. Avis was the first car rental business to be located at an airport.
The company was founded in 1946 with three cars at Willow Run Airport. Ypsilanti by Warren Avis (August 4, 1915 – April 24, 2007). It established branch operations across the United States over the next few years, becoming the second largest car rental company in the country by 1953. By its tenth anniversary in 1956 it had opened its first international offices in Europe, Canada and Mexico.
Their corporate motto is "We Try Harder." It was adopted in 1962 (during the tenure of Robert Townsend as its CEO) to make a more positive reference of Avis' status as the second largest car rental company in the US, at the expense of its larger competitor The Hertz Corporation. In 1981, the company instituted its system of vehicle tracking, that was coincidentally named Advanced Vehicle Identification System (AVIS).
Avis car rental has been owned by a number of other companies over the years, along with several periods of being a public company. These include:
• 1962 - Investment group Lazard Freres
• 1965 - ITT Corporation
• 1977 - Norton Simon
• 1983 - Esmark
• 1984 - Beatrice
• 1986 - Investment firm Wesray Capital Corporation
• 1996 - HFS Corporation
• 2001 - Cendant
• 2006 - Avis Budget Group
• 2009 - Avis Colombia