We are flying in to Zurich and will train it over to Basel where we would like to rent a car so we can drive up to Colmar, wine towns, and end up in Strasbourg as a base for a couple of days (may head in to Germany for a bit). Tickets already bought so no chance of changing flying in to Basel. We are guessing that the best place to pick up the car is the Bale Mulhouse Fribourg airport since it is in France, to avoid expensive multi country drop off costs. Is there a train from the main train station in Basel to the airport - and does this make sense?
There is a bus - complete with flags so you can tell it is the right one - which goes from directly outside the SBB Hauptbahnhof (train station) and goes straight to the airport. No train.
You can get cars on the Swiss side of the airport and from the French side. Don't get confused.
And don't get tempted to drive on Swiss highways with car from the French side if it hasn't got a Vignette on the windscreen.
Do you think picking the car up in Colmar would make more sense? Train it from Zurich to Colmar then pick up car? Looking for easy and fast. Looks like Colmar has a car rental near the train station and Strasbourg has one at their train station with Avis, and Hertz.
If you are coming off of a long flight, then I would take the train all the way to your overnight location and pick up the car the next day.
You earlier said you had purchased a ticket from Zurich to Freiburg, but maybe you've decided to skip that Basel-Freiburg connection.