Wednesday 11 July 2012

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

11 comments:

  1. Haha...love it! We've had a few cars like that in our time. Our first home here, in Gumusluk, was furnished in similar taste to that of Bulent's holiday rentals..all sorts of strange furniture, just to fill the empty spaces.

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  2. Wow! I can only imagine how things were back then. Funny memories though!

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  3. You really made me smile and feel quite nostalgic. I sometimes wish things could have stayed that way in Turkey... On my first visit in the early '90s I saw some of these Fiats 124 still being rented out. The same fleet perhaps?

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  4. Love it!
    Costa Rica budget car hire is still catching up with Turkey in the 80's...

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  5. Ooof! This sounds like one of those nostalgic experiences that is much, much funnier in retrospect. Thanks for the laugh.

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  6. . . what a hoot! Reminds me of a chap I know in Dalyan - an original 'Medallion Man' to this day - who built a touristic centre on the marshes out of recycled builder's stuff. The only access was by boat and the mozzies could suck you dry in a couple of hours. It stands (sort of), decaying to this day and would not be out of place in the worst slum areas of Calcutta. The toilet block had a plank over a ditch that connected to the river and relied on the wake from passing boats to flush it out!

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  7. Hello! And thank you for my dose of laughter today! I laughed long and loud at your final line! Peace.

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  8. this is too funny....a steering wheel in hand. Hope the brakes worked on these cars.

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  9. ATTENTION Everyone: NEVER rent a car from Rent-A-Wreck in Billings (or anywhere for that matter)!! They'll hide a "refundable" $500 deposit they charge you when you take the car and then SCREW you on returning it!! Oh wait, I mean they flat out WON'T return it for whatever reason they can possibly come up with... I will be complaining to EVERYONE I can find in their corporate office, but in the meantime I wanted to warn all my friends and family NEVER to rent from those people. It's worth the extra hassle of flying in my book now!!

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