When David Schwartz left his university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-Wreck as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up shabby vehicles waiting the scrap heap in California. He looked forward to watching people's faces as he showed them round the collection of bumperless, dented vehicles. To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and he now has thriving branches all over America and Scandinavia.

Schwartz said, “People like driving round in the worst available. If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to admit it, I tell him, ‘Forget it.’ If they bring a car back late, we overlook it. One Los Angeles wife asked 'Where's the ashtray?' as she settled into the ripped interior. 'Honey,' said her husband, 'the whole car's the ashtray.’”

Who would have thought it? A fortune from broken down cars.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This world is broken. People are broken. God made the world perfect, but it got wrecked by humankind going their own way. But here’s the good news. God offers to mend broken lives through Jesus Christ his Son. Paul said “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). There’s a place in God's kingdom for you.