The Omnibus Corporation (also Omnibus Corporation of America) is an American bus company that was formed in 1924 and acquired control of

Fifth Avenue Coach Company The Fifth Avenue Coach Company was a bus operator in Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, and Westchester County, New York, providing public transit between 1896 and 1954 after which services were taken over by the New York City Omnibus Corporation. ...

and the

Chicago Motor Coach Company The Chicago Motor Coach Company was founded in 1917 by John D. Hertz to provide Chicago's first bus transportation services, primarily in places where streetcars were not able to travel. The company grew rapidly and was purchased by the Chicago T ...

with

John D. Hertz John Daniel Hertz, Sr. (April 10, 1879October 8, 1961) was an American businessman, thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder, and philanthropist. Biography Born Sándor Herz to a Jewish family in Szklabinya, Austria-Hungary (today Sklabiňa, a ...

as chairman. In 1953, it purchased

Yellow Drive-It-Yourself Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In th ...

from

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

and sold its interests in public transport. The following year the company was renamed

The Hertz Corporation The Hertz Corporation is an American car rental company based in Estero, Florida. The company operates its namesake Hertz brand, along with the brands Dollar Rent A Car, Firefly Car Rental and Thrifty Car Rental. It is one of the three big re ...

and was floated on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its liste ...

History

formed the Omnibus Corporate in 1924 as a merger of the Chicago Motor Coach and the Fifth Avenue Motor Coach Corporation of New York City.Chicago Motor Coach Co.
''The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago'' © 2005 Chicago Historical Society Between 1925 and 1936, The Omnibus Corporation acquired streetcar companies that operated on

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Str ...

and Eighth Avenue. In 1952, the Chicago operations were taken over by the

Chicago Transit Authority The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its surrounding suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago 'L' and CTA bus service. In , the system had a ridership of , ...

. In 1953, Hertz made a deal for The Omnibus Corporation to purchase the 'Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System' car rental business from GM that he had sold to GM as part of the

Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company The Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company (informally Yellow Coach) was an early manufacturer of passenger buses in the United States. Between 1923 and 1943, Yellow Coach built transit buses, electric-powered trolley buses, and parlor coaches. Fo ...

in 1925. Hertz sold all The Omnibus Corporation's public transport interests the same year, changed the name to 'The Hertz Corporation', and floated it on the New York Stock Exchange the following year.

History

References

Further reading