April 10, 1879

Hertz Rental Car Founder Born

On this day in 1879, Sandor Herz--the future John Hertz, the man behind what will one day be the world’s largest car-rental company--is born in present-day Slovakia.

Hertz immigrated to America w/his family as a child & grew up in Chicago. In 1915, he founded the Yellow Cab Company in Chicago as a means of providing affordable transportation to average citizens. Yellow Cab franchises soon opened across the country. In 1923, Hertz bought a rental-car company from Walter Jacobs, who had founded the Chicago-based business in 1918 w/a fleet of Ford Model Ts. Hertz renamed the business Hertz Drive-Ur-Self Corporation, & in 1926, it was acquired by GM. John Hertz became a member of the BoD of GM, which in the ‘20s overtook Ford to become the world’s biggest automaker.

In 1932, the Hertz company opened its 1st car rental shop, at Chicago’s Midway Airport. In 1950, Hertz’s inaugural European facility debuted in France. Within 5 years after that, Hertz became the 1st rent-a-car business to open 1,000 locations thruout the world. John Hertz, who was also a philanthropist & raised thoroughbred horses, died at the age of 82 on 10/8/1961.

In 2002, Hertz became the 1st international car rental company to open for business in China. Other milestones in the company’s history include the 2006 rollout of the Green Collection of fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles. The following year, Hertz added the Toyota Prius, the world’s 1st mass-produced gas-electric hybrid vehicle to the collection. Also in 2007, Hertz began offering hourly car rentals in NY City & Boston. As of 2008, Hertz had some 8,100 locations in 147 countries worldwide. The company’s reservation centers deal w/an estimated 40 million phone calls & 30 million reservations each year.

1966 Shelby GT350H

The Hertz Rent-a-Racer

By Jonathan Lamas
www.mustangs.about.com/od/1966mustangmodelprofiles/a/1966-gt350h.htm

In 1965 the Shelby Mustang came to life w/the introduction of the high-performance Shelby GT350 .
This powerful race-ready Mustang became an instant hit on & off the track.

In September of 1965 Shelby American GM Peyton Cramer struck up a deal w/Hertz to offer the 1966 GT350H Mustang as a rental car. The program was a clever one for Ford & Shelby as it worked to promote the Shelby Mustang to potential buyers. As Ford puts it, “The idea was to put high-performance, special-edition Shelby Mustang coupes into the hands of racing enthusiast-minded rental customers.” That’s right, if you were a Hertz Sports Car Club member  back in 1966 (& 25 years of age), you could drive off the rental car lot in a performance 306 hp Mustang fastback. Total cost: $17 a day & 17 cents a mile. Not a bad deal by today’s standards & not a bad deal back then.
As you can imagine, this venture was popular among the racing enthusiast crowd. In fact, it’s been reported that some renters actually took their rental cars to the track where they would remove the engine & put it in their personal race car. At the end of the race they’d drop the Cobra engine back into the rental car & return it to Hertz. The idea was to avoid damaging the rental car, while boosting the performance of their personal ride.
Other stories tell of rental car drivers taking the car to the drag strip for a weekend of racing. As such, many of the rental cars were returned to the rental company in need of repair. In a 2006 interview, Walter Seaman, Hertz Corporation division VP, Worldwide Fleet, Maintenance, & Car Sales Operations, said, “40 years ago when Hertz had the program, it was [a] little less controlled. We were very careful w/a very detailed check sheet when the car was rented & returned. There were some people who thought they were getting away w/a lot of things, but they ended up reimbursing us for damage.” Even tho the venture was successful for Hertz, it proved costly to keep the cars in the fleet.
The 1966 Shelby GT350H, based on the 1966 GT350, featured a Cobra 289 High Performance V8 engine outputting 306 hp & 329 lb/ft of torque. Altho most of the cars did not feature power brakes, a power brake booster was added to some of the vehicles per Hertz's request. It seems many drivers found the braking to be too difficult & complained to the company. A unique feature of the Shelby GT350H is wheel-center caps featuring the Hertz Sports Car Cub logo as well as Goodyear Blue streak tires. Other special features include functional fiberglass scoops used to cool the rear brakes, a red, white, & blue cobra gas cap featuring the Shelby emblem, a tach mounted on the dash, & Plexiglas rear ¼ windows. Of note, about 100 of the 1966 Shelby GT350Hs did not feature the fiberglass hood found on regular GT350s. They featured an all-steel hood.
In all, only 1,001 of these fastbacks were built for Hertz in 1966. The makeup consisted of 999 units of the following colors: A majority in Raven Black w/Gold (Bronze Powder) side & Le Mans racing stripes, 50 Candy Apple Red w/side stripes, 50 Wimbledon White w/side stripes (as well as several models w/both side & Le Mans stripes), 50 Sapphire Blue models w/side stripes, & 50 Ivy Green w/side stripes. 2 of the GT350H Mustangs were prototype models. Each of the cars was built at the Shelby American LAX facility.
The 1st 100 GT350H models were ordered w/4-spd transmissions. According to an article about the car in Mustang Monthly magazine, a San Francisco Hertz dealer complained that drivers were burning out the clutches. Hertz & Ford rethought the program after 85 of the cars were delivered & decided to run w/automatic transmissions for the remainder of the build cycle. All of the 4-spd cars sported a Raven black exterior.
As w/other Shelby Mustangs of the time, the GT350H was quick. According to a 1966 issue of C&D magazine, the 1966 Shelby GT350H Mustang could do 0-60 in 6.6 seconds. It could do a standing ¼ mile in 15.2 seconds @ 93 mph. The top speed was 117 mph. Bottom line: this car was a serious machine both on & off the track.
Over the years the 1966 Shelby GT350H Mustang has become highly sought after by collectors. Due to the harsh driving conditions they were subjected too by rental car drivers, many of the cars were taken out of commission years ago. In fact, there was a time when no one wanted to touch one w/a 10’ pole. After all, buying a used rental car wasn’t the thing to do. Well, years later the ones that are left are extremely valuable & easily net $150,000 or more in auctions each year. In fact, those lucky enough to own one own a coveted piece of Mustang history.
In all, the car has grown in popularity over the years. In fact, it grew so popular the powers that be decided to bring it back for a new generation of drivers. 40 years after its initial introduction in 1966, Shelby got together once again w/Hertz to offer up the 2006 Shelby GT-H Mustang  (below). The car once again featured a black exterior w/gold stripes. Keeping w/tradition, the cars were fast both on & off the track.
Altho the 1965 Shelby GT350 is what started it all, the 1966 Shelby GT350H is the car that delivered the message to the world. As can be imagined, the car is a favorite among Mustang enthusiasts worldwide.