Corporate Information About JUCY Car Rentals & Campervan Hire In New Zealand
How it all started
Brothers generally kick a ball around their backyard, or go surfing and then head their separate ways after college. Not the Alpe boys of Jucy rentals.
Tim and Dan Alpe have known the vehicle hire business all their lives. Their dad used to own Maui campervans and they cleaned the vehicles for pocket money in their holidays.
They had rental hiring in their blood and a few years ago they joined forces and decided to launch their own brand – Jucy. Now they want it to be the worlds coolest tourism brand. They want to rubber stamp what Virgin did in Europe and the US. They have just zoomed through their ninth year in business.
"The first deal we did when we started Jucy was to purchase 35 Daewoo Lanos cars from the Auckland Hospital Board,’’ Tim Alpe says. ``We used to joke at the time that our greatest claim to fame was that we had the biggest single fleet of Daewoos outside South Korea. There is not much you can’t do in a Daewoo!"
"We were lucky that we started our business at the start of the summer season when it is very hard to find cars in Auckland. That meant that we were basically profitable after about three months trading. We also ran the business on the smell of an oily rag which meant that Dan and I basically did everything from reservations, customer pickups and cleaning the cars."
Jucy was born late 2001 (it was just after 9/11) from a tiny office on The Strand in Auckland. The boys will always remember their start date. Some say size doesn’t matter, but in just a few years Jucy has one of the largest fleets in Australasia.
Their head office is in Auckland but their busiest branch is Christchurch Airport. It has been the busiest and most profitable from day one and it hasn’t taken Auckland long to see that they are now also loved by their fellow JAFAs.
"We have had some unusual requests in this business. A few years ago we had a guy who wanted to hire one of our larger campervans to use for a porno film. After careful consideration we declined as we didn’t know how the next person who hired the vehicle might take the news that it was previously an adult film set.
"When we started we had no idea what to call the company. We were in Italy and someone came up with the idea that we should call it Ezy Rentals. Unfortunately as a result of our commercial naivety we forgot to trademark or protect the name. What that meant was the bigger we got the more our competitors started using our name in their advertising as well as setting up second brands. The word Easy is also impossible to protect as the serial entrepreneur Stelios from easyJet basically owns it around the world. And yes, we got a cease and desist letter from the big guy!
"I approached a very funky brand company called Radiation about our problem and expected them to say we were too far down the track to rebrand. They of course said we had no choice if we wanted to make our business a leading brand in the tourism industry. Between the two of us JUCY was born and we have never looked back. We also made sure that we trademarked the Jucy brand around the world from day one," Tim says.
The brothers enjoy working alongside each other. They work well together as Dan’s strengths are Tim’s weakness and vice versa and they can shoot from the hip without offending each other.
We even have flashy Vision and Mission Statements!
Our Vision
JUCY will be the worlds coolest tourism brand. We will JUCYFY the World.
Our Mission
Our mission (and we do choose to accept it) is to become the worlds coolest tourism company by giving our customers the permission to be playful and experience their dreams.
Our Brand Values
Fun - no matter how hard the day may seem, we will never lose our sense of humour.
Family - when you work for JUCY or hire, cruise or sleep JUCY you are instantly part of the family.
Pride - for what we do better than anyone else - put in the hard yards and deliver great quality.
Passion - for making every customers journey a JUCY one.
Why hire JUCY?
We could go on all day about why you would choose a trusted company like JUCY to rent from but we dont need to, just take a look at any of thousands of happy customers that post testimonials on our website or talk about us on sites such as Facebook or Twitter, or if your still not convinced then check out our blog where we post stories, photos and videos our happy customers send in almost every day!
If you still need the bullet points, then here they are:
• Family owned personal service
• Vehicles able to be picked up and dropped off 24hrs
• Hire cars & campas to 18yrs plus
• Freephone numbers from Australia, UK, USA and Germany
• 2000 cars and campas on fleet through out New Zealand and Australia
• Locations in Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown, Brisbane, Sydney and Cairns
• Free pickup from airports and from nearby hotels
• Unlimited kilometres
• Tax included in rates
• 24hr Roadside Assistance
• Access to multi-lingual staff
