Warren Avis, the entrepreneur who founded Avis Car Rentals, was born in Bay City, Michigan on August 4, 1915. Just a few years before creating the company, Warren served as a bombardier with the U.S. Army Air Forces during WWII.
Avis’s experience as a wartime pilot gave him unique insight into the future of commercial aviation, leading him to notice a glaring logistical gap in passenger travel: there was no reliable way for flyers to find ground transportation once they landed at an airport. In 1946, he invested his personal savings to launch the very first airport-based car rental operation at Willow Run Airport in Detroit with just three cars. By convincing major airlines to let his rental counters operate directly inside the terminals, Avis completely revolutionized the travel industry, linking aviation and automotive transit into one seamless network.
Image: Avis Rent-a-Car System Ford Contour from 1950sUnlimited – CC BY 2.0
