History
The company was founded in 1946 with three cars at Willow Run Airport, Ypsilanti, Michigan, 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. The slogan was used for 50 years before a rebranding in 2012, in which Avis received a new slogan, "It's Your Space." In 1972, Avis introduced Wizard, the first computer-based information and reservations system to be used in a US car rental business; to this day, almost all frequent Avis customers are identified by their unique "Wizard number". In 1981, the company instituted its system of vehicle tracking, that was not coincidentally named Advanced Vehicle Identification System (AVIS).
Avis 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
- 1987 - Majority ownership under an Employee Share Ownership Plan
- 1989 - General Motors (acquires 29% stake)
- 1996 - HFS Corporation
- 2001 - Cendant
- 2006 - Avis Budget Group
Read more about this topic: Avis Rent A Car System
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