Our company, Hatzilaou-Mamakas, was founded in 1947 by Georgios Hatzilaou and Dimitris Mamakas, whose families had to come to Kalymnos as refugees from the Greek Halikarnassus - today's Bodrum - in Turkey.
They started the company without any money at all but with three bikes left behind by the Italians, who abandoned Kalymnos as the Twelve Islands (Dodecanese) were finally liberated after the Second World War.
Georgios Hatzilaou and Dimitris Mamakas repaired the bikes and started renting them out.
In 1953 they had around 100 bikes for rent and three offices in Pothia, Panormos and Vathis. The same year they also started renting out motorbikes.
In 1955 they began to sell motorbikes as well - REX and NSU, both German brands.
In 1958 they were able to start importing motorbikes on their own. They choose another German brand - KREIDLER - of which they sold about 10.000 to a population of 14.000 people in Kalymnos. In 1975 Hatzilaou - Mamakas became the representative of Piaggio.
We (Dimitris Hatzilaou and Yannis Mamakas) took over the company from our fathers with equal shares in 1982. Three years later we expanded the rental business with @lfa Rent a Bike and in 1990 we began renting out cars. In 1996 we opened up our franchise business - @lfa Rent a Car.
Today we have Rental Offices for Motorbikes and Cars in Pothia, Myrties and Massouri and we are still expanding ... |