![]() ![]() Customers would drive to their destination, find a station, and leave the trailer (trucks weren’t introduced until 1959) along with a packet of information about becoming an official dealer. ![]() U-Haul trusted their trailers to complete strangers.īefore U-Haul was able to establish a footprint in every major city across America, their strategy was to entice local business owners to become “agents” for the company by dropping off rented trailers at motor vehicle service stations. ![]() The distinctive paint job also made the vehicles double as portable billboards for the company. The U-Haul owner immediately set about copying the bright orange design he had seen on highway barricades so his fleet would be visible to other drivers on the road. That proved to be a problem when he made a turn at a four-way intersection and got hit by an oncoming vehicle because-according to the other driver-he couldn’t see Shoen. Originally, Shoen had painted his trailers black. U-Haul's orange color scheme is a safety thing. Customers could rent the trailers for $2 per day-a small price to enable what Leonard's son Joe would later call a “better life.” 2. He began U-Haul that same year, with the company comparing the trucks to the covered wagons of the early frontier. Shoen, who had just been discharged from the Navy, saw a need to enable families in a post-World War II economy to relocate on their own. When Leonard "Sam" Shoen and his wife wanted to move from Los Angeles to Portland in 1945, they found that no one was willing to rent them a one-way trailer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |