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ACE Rent a Car is a privately held business founded in 1966 by Robert Sorenson. Originally, Sorenson owned two car washes in Indianapolis and added 10 Volkswagens to meet the rental needs of the surrounding neighborhoods. The rental business grew organically. Soon he found himself operating at the Indianapolis International Airport, renting vehicles as part of the now defunct American International franchise system.
By 1986, the operation had grown to multiple locations throughout Indiana and the Chicago area. Sorenson left the American International system and formed the ACE Rent a Car chain. A primary motivation for this change was the need to be represented on the emerging Global Distribution Systems (GDS), such as Sabre, PARS, and Apollo. Although ACE was a relatively small company, it became a leading adopter of GDS technology. Soon other independent rent-a-car companies joined with ACE to take advantage of their advanced reservation systems.
ACE Rent a Car today
Today, the ACE car rental chain consists of 11 company-owned outlets and over 200 affiliated locations worldwide, making ACE the largest rent a car chain of its type. The company offices are located in Indiana (Indianapolis, Kokomo, Bloomington, Greenwood and Lafayette) and Illinois (Chicago O'Hare, Schaumburg and Elmhurst). The affiliated locations include 70 airports. In addition to serving the major US and Canadian airports, the ACE system has a concentration on leisure destinations in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America.
While ACE has quietly grown to become one of the largest rent a car chains in the western hemisphere, it is still a small company compared to chains like Hertz, AVIS, and Enterprise. All ACE locations offer only late model vehicles -- always being within the latest two model years and under 40,000 miles.
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