Business Notes AUTO RENTALS

Avon Rent-A-Car in Los Angeles offers customers some of the world's classiest autos, including Rolls-Royces, Porsches and BMWs. Naturally, the company also expects its clients to have some class and certainly to be above petty vandalism. But Avon President Stuart Silver reports that more than half of last year's 12,000 rentals came back without the rear license-plate frame. The frames have Avon Rent-a-Car printed on them, and Silver reasons that customers who shell out $350 a day for a Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible "want everybody to think it's their car."

Many competitors avoid the problem by keeping the words rent-a-car off their frames. Silver, meanwhile, has tried unsuccessfully to secure his frames with a variety of bolts. He now accepts the ripoffs as part of the cost of doing business and hopes the minority of frames that stay on the cars get noticed. Says he: "It's still a good way to advertise."