Rent a Wreck

Posting about tractor rental reminded me of my own foray into the car-hire world. In 1984, I got married and decided a life on the ocean wave was no longer for me so took a land-based job.   Bilge, the gentleman I mentioned in my first two posts, offered me employment as sole rep for his villa rental business.  The villas were mostly in Aktur near Bitez, which was one of very few established sites.  It looked very pretty from the outside with Bodrum's ubiquitous purple bougainvillea tumbling over the white-washed villas, but the owners had strange (to the 1980s British market) ideas on what constituted acceptable holiday furnishings.  Most had filled their houses with the tatty outcasts from their Istanbul and Ankara homes. One had used his old office furniture and expected his guests to eat at a desk. Looking at the design magazines today, they were 30 years ahead of their time.  Bilge decided to offer all his clients free car hire and instead of doing a deal with Avis or Hertz, bought 12 ancient Fiat 124s which he called his "Recycled Ferraris" These would be parked outside the Bodrum office on transfer day and handed over to the clients as they got off the bus.  We would then drive in convoy the 10 kms to Aktur.  These cars were already 10 to 15 years old and not all would make it through the week, or even the trip to the villa.  Most of my time was spent ferrying mechanics to stricken cars all around the peninsula. In the days before mobile phones I'm amazed at how often I was called out to change tyres. Occasionally a wheel or two would fall off and I'd have to go out a rescue a family in my jeep. Visitors to Turkey were a game lot in those days, true travelers rather than tourists and we had very few serious complaints but had to put up with the full whammy of British dry humour and sarcasm.  The most memorable being the client who walked into the office with a steering wheel in his hand asking if this was my idea of a anti-theft device.



Introdruction to Bulent:
http://backtobodrum.blogspot.com/2012/01/1982.html

http://backtobodrum.blogspot.com/2012/01/izmir-1982-2.html