National Car Rental vanishes from Toronto

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Has anyone else noticed that the number of car rental places in Toronto has gone from dozens to practically nothing in the last six months?

This is basically old news by now, but I had to post something since there doesn’t seem to be any information online about what happened. All I know is that last summer I had a lot of options when I wanted to rent a car, I could go to National Car Rental, my favorite, or check out Hertz, or Avis. It was just a matter of which location was closer, or who had the best deal.

Then, next thing I know, I’m doing a search for a car with National at their Islington and Bloor location, and poof, no results. I thought it was a mistake so I searched their location page – surprise, that location doesn’t exist any more.

That happened during the summer last year, and since then nearly every National Car location in Toronto has closed shop. The map above will give you a little idea about that – the company went from ten locations within the city, to three, and as far as I can tell all of the other locations in the GTA have closed too.

From that point on I started renting cars, when I needed one, with Hertz or Avis, but those companies have closed a lot of stores too. Now, I don’t rent that often, but I am really surprised that I only have one or two locations to choose from now, and that includes the National location at the airport.

So, does anyone know what happened? I’m guessing the rough financial times have affected all the car rental companies, and National was just the most noticeable for me, but I really have no clue. All I know is that I went from always renting from National, to not really even having one company I can consistently deal with.

As a side note, the map came from the National at the airport this past weekend. Not sure if the company even realizes these are still out there, but it’s odd to look at this map and realize in six months it’s become completely out of date, at least in terms of company locations.