Of course, one thing that some people do not know about Hertz car rentals is that they do more than just rent out cars. In fact, Hertz also has a heavy equipment rental division. This section of Hertz is known as Hertz Equipment Rental Corporation, sometimes just called HERC. The headquarters of this section of Hertz is located in Park Ridge, New Jersey in the United States. Worldwide there are almost 300 branches of this section of Hertz, and they are located in the United States, France, India, and Spain.

Although Hertz is a big name of today, it was not always that big. In fact, when it first started out, the company was started by a Mr Walter L. Jacobs in 1918. He started this small rent-a-car operation in Chicago and only had a dozen Model T cars to do it with. By the time 1923 rolled around, Walter was finally ready to sell the operation. This is where John D. Hertz, the president of Yellow Cab, stepped in to buy it out. After Mr Hertz bought the company, he renamed it to “Hertz Drive Ur Self System.”

Over the years, Hertz has changed many hands. It has belonged to everyone from General Motors to United Airlines. Soon Ford Motor Company would by all the outstanding stock on the stock market. When this happened, Hertz became a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company from 1994 to 2005.

However, in June of 2005, Ford announced that Hertz would be spun off in an initial public offering. In September of the same year, the company was sold to a private equity group for $5.6 billion in cash. After the company bought up Hertz, they took it public in 2006, and Hertz is now available on the New York Stock Exchange.

Of course, Hertz has done a lot more than just change hands over the years. It has also done a fair share of changing its policies. In July of 2008, Hertz started a new policy on refueling their car rental returns. Pretty much, instead of charging a higher per gallon charge to refuel the car, Hertz just charges $6.99 for the service of refueling the car at the local average pump price. The small charge represented the effort of refueling the car at the pumps. However, in December of 2008 Hertz gave up on the idea and reverted right away to their old refueling policy.

There are few rent-a-car companies that have been around as long as Hertz has. That’s why Hertz car rentals are known by travelers as the best rent-a-cars you can get. Not only do you get access to the latest cars, but you get access to them at great prices.