Our Approach

In its nearly 51 year history, the AthensCars – Car Hire Crete rent a car brand has continued to serve family and leisure travelers with fun, friendly service and low-cost, high value vehicles. Today, AthensCars Car Hire Crete operates through a network of more than 10 locations throughout Crete island. You can find an online rate, using our website athenscars-crete.grIn addition, you may request for an offer by emailing us to info@athenscars.gr . Athenscars-Crete proposes you to reserve your vacation Rental through our website.

Our Story

AthensCars-Crete Car hire for Crete started in 1972 with one location in Heraklion city center, than in 1973 the company owner Emmanouel Mavrakis made more pick up locations in Crete. AthensCars focused its mission on providing a fun, low-cost, high-value rental experience to family and leisure travelers.

The first car rental station opened in Heraklion center, close to the archaeological museum, in 1972. After that, more stations followed in other major leisure destinations including a new station at Chania airport, late 1998, where more customers managed to find the location and cheap flights, visiting Crete’s most beautiful
part, Rethymnon Platanes village and Agios Nikolaos city. After that, AthensCars became one of Crete’s largest rental agencies. In 1984 however, AthensCars introduced a new customized rental agreement. It was a program that stored a traveler’s individual rental information for instant reference, a system that could save all information and make the next car rental easier for the customer.

AthensCars-crete quickly became one of Crete island’s largest vacation car rental providers. In addition, the company created programs to accommodate and encourage leisure travel since 1973. To facilitate the increase in leisure travelers and combine car hire with vacation package, AthensCars-crete offered car rental with km limit, this method lasted for 10years. In 1990’s offered free km limit car hire Crete, this way attracted more travelers and became easier to hire a car in Crete island, Heraklion airport.

New Crete car hire era…exploring new fields

On April 19, 1990, AthensCars Car hire company set out to revolutionize collision damage waivers. It happened with the introduction of the first-ever price and coverage option for all customers. In order to meet the needs of the “Web” consumer, AthensCars became the first car rental company with booking capabilities on the Internet since 1996, we were used to exchange “fax” with our customers, as we did not know how to handle the emails that period. On 1997, we constructed our own website with Kostas Koutrakis – SimCom and in 1998 we managed a fantastic season. Therefore, customers could visit AthensCars-Crete.gr to find locations, view rates and select their vehicle.

Soon, AthensCars-Crete.gr expanded to include a membership-services section. Similarly, the web site included travel tools for the weather of Crete, driving directions, currency converter and useful information for Crete. On 2003, we managed to construct Crete’s first “automatic” website, with the great help of GoWebMan, where the customer could pay online with the use of a credit card. On 2004 we introduced athenscars2004.com website(not existing), customers could reserve a car in Athens city too, the Olympic Games 2004 year!

Nevertheless, many agencies joined the web, athenscars-Crete managed to become one of the best agencies on the island Crete! Trust the way we treat our customers. Moreover, we know a vacation is successful when it starts with an excellent car – provided at the port or airport. Enjoy your stay in Crete, book using our athenscars.gr website!


Emm. Mavrakis S.A
Address: 130 Andrea Papandreou Str.
Ammoudara | Heraklion | Chania | Crete | Greece
Phone: +30 2810 821 424,
mob. +30 6936 790 870
Email: info@athenscars.gr

E.O.T. LICENCE NR:1039 E 0081 00701 00

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