EASYRENTACAR, the budget rental firm has renamed as easyCar following the end of a dispute with Eurodrive, which ran the easycar.co.uk website for its own low-cost rental operation.

On reaching agreement Eurodrive has rebranded its low-cost car rental operation as extrarentacar.

EasyCar runs a fleet that consists exclusively of Mercedes-Benz A-class, a strategy that is developing into one of the most interesting initiatives between any manufacturer and rental company.

Where other daily rental firms operate multi-marque fleets so that customers book a car size rather than a specific model, easyCar's A-class fleet means Mercedes-Benz can be sure that every customer has requested an A-class.

This makes the rental programme a perfect test drive opportunity, and Mercedes-Benz is building on the sales opportunities that this presents for both new and used A-class.

'Because it is internet-based we know the customer's name, address, financial and insurance details, so we have a huge data profile on them,' said Dermot Kelly, Mercedes-Benz director, passenger cars.

'We are now starting to ring people - our target is within 10 days to ask about what they thought of the car. The current fleet size generates about 90,000 drives per year, and a 3% conversion rate of these to buy a new or used A-class would work for us, while 5% would be good.'