The Ayuntamiento de Tías has unanimously given the green light to name Mamerto Cabrera as favorite son of the municipality posthumously. The Lanzarote native has been recognized for his professional career in the car rental segment, but also for his personal values.
The council of Tías has thus thanked its “closeness and affection, customer safety and satisfaction, kindness, simplicity and desire for improvement”.
The spokesperson for the governing group, formed by PSOE and Unidas Sí Podemos, Tomás Silvera, has recalled that the car rental company founded in 1967 by Mamerto Cabrera Medina (Mácher, 1925 – Arrecife, 2003) started with only five cars in a small garage and currently has a fleet of more than 17,000 vehicles and provides direct employment to more than 1,500 workers distributed throughout all the Canary Islands.
“This data summarizes the impressive trajectory of the Cabrera Medina business group, one of whose brands, CICAR, leads the car rental segment in the Canary Islands. CICAR is present in all airports, ports, and tourist areas of the archipelago and has more than 60 offices distributed throughout the regional geography. Its logo is a creation of the Lanzarote artist César Manrique,” Silvera pointed out.
Thus, it has been recalled that Mamerto Cabrera Medina was born in the area of Barranco del Quíquere, where he spent part of his childhood. Later he moved to Arrecife, trained as a carpenter and in 1954 set up a carpentry shop in a small garage located on Cuba street. He married another daughter of Mácher, Nieves Cabrera Camejo, from whose union their four children were born: Nieves, Pedro, Mamerto and Ángeles.
In 1967, after an accident of his youngest daughter with the machinery of his carpentry shop, he decided to dedicate himself to vehicle rental. In the 80s, it came to occupy the first place among the companies in the sector on the island, being in 1986 when it was constituted as a family business under the commercial acronym of Autos Cabrera Medina.
In 1989 it acquired CICAR (Canary Islands Car) and, little by little, the group expanded with new companies such as Orvecame, Camemovil, Came Canarias and Orvecame Tenerife, official dealerships for the distribution and sale of several vehicle brands. It also has its own printing press: Graficame.
The group carries out important patronage work by collaborating with numerous associations, sports clubs and cultural events and, especially, with Canarian wrestling, of which Mamerto Cabrera Medina was a great fan. The group's trajectory has made it worthy of countless awards and recognitions in the Canary Islands.