I hear it’s been a bit, umm, cozy in some parts of the country. We finally had our first 80 degree day on Friday. And the nights are in the mid-fifties, Meaning, no need for air conditioning in our houses. But our (modern) cars all have them, although I hardly ever turn it on in my white Xb with its very vertical windows, except for a longer freeway trip on a really warm day.
But I remember well how miserable it was riding in Iowa in a certain hot black car with plastic seat covers. And it was even muggier in Baltimore, in our non-a/c ’65 Coronet wagon.
But the question is (obviously not geared to the youngest readers) when did you first ride in an air conditioned car? Me? A 1961 Fleetwood Sixty Special that my father’s cousin came in to visit us in Iowa City (in 1963, I believe). He had just bought it used, and as a traveling salesman (the big trunk stuffed full of high-quality German cameras and opticals), he loved it indeed. And he took us out for a treat at the Purple Cow Drive-In. And it was profoundly memorable indeed. What a revelation; one that my parents would not indulge in until 1973.
The first one that I rode in was our 1964 Ford Fairlane 500 2-door hardtop, Wimbledon White with a two-toned blue interior. It was purchased new from Leon Ames Ford (yes, the movie actor) in Encino, California (part of Los Angeles). The Select-Aire (jeez! how do I remember all this stuff?) A/C was factory but looked like an add-on hanging under the dash. Wait a minute, now that I think of it, could it have been dealer-installed? Maybe someone knows.
It worked really well. Just a “cold” knob and a 3-speed fan knob. No “recirculate” or any of that fancy stuff. We’d go to Illinois every summer to visit the grandparents. We would all pile in and just drive around Kewanee with no actual destination just to escape the un-airconditioned house and the Midwest humidity. How’s that for fun?
Either my Uncle Albert’s 1984 Triple Purple Ninety Eight, which he still has, and the A/C still works, or my Aunt Ethel’s 1983 Cutlass Supreme Brougham. Probably on a summer trip to Texas or Louisiana
The Cutlass we had’s A/C quit long before I was born, as did our Camaro, but the Cutlass being white on White, with more white, it wasn’t as bad in hotter places like weekend trips to Sacramento, beyond that we always rented something.
My Great Grandmother saw no use in using her A/C in her ’76 New Yorker. Just as much as she didn’t believe giving over control of the windows or locks to a toddler, or using the Sunroof. The one time I ever remember opening the sunroof on that car was when my mom had it while my great grandmother was in Alabama. Even then she was worried that it wouldn’t seal correctly and she’d get in trouble.
But growing up in the Bay Area it was rare that we needed (or need now) A/C. All cars I’ve owned except my 280E didn’t have functioning A/C. And all of the cars I’ve owned have had Leather, Vinyl or MB-Tex. San Francisco Fog:The ultimate A/C…..
I hear you, Laurence! I grew up in San Rafael . . . . in fact, my Dad DIDN’T get it on his 1980 Honda Civic . . . that at the time he had to wait almost two months for delivery (Bob Benson in Petaluma) . . . however, trips to Sacramento in summer got rather warm and toasty . . . . I am also familiar with elders who may have had A/C in their cars way back when in the 60’s and 70’s in the Bay Area, but rarely, if ever used them as I’d see little old ladies in their Chryslers, Lincolns and Caddies rolling along with the windows down and a scarf tied ’round their heads letting the breeze blow in.
Growing up in the UK in the 70s/80s, A/C was unheard of. However, I had a very well-off neighbour who had an early 80s Bentley, and we got a ride in it one evening for some forgotten reason. He turned it up to “full icy”, which was painfully cold. Just as memorable as your experience Paul!
My Grandmother loved the Max A/C in Missouri . . and little me would quickly turn into a side of beef! She loved the car meat locker cold.
Amazing coincidence, Paul! My first ride in an air conditioned car also involved a Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special. This one though was a 1958 model, purchased by my great uncle in an estate sale around 1960. I’ve mentioned this before; that car had all the bells and whistles we take for granted today: power steering and brakes, power front seat, power locks, and power windows (including the front vent windows), besides of course the A/C. I grew up in a house without air conditioning in Pittsburgh; summer heat waves could be nasty, even back then in the 60s.
I can’t imagine going without house or car A/C now in central Virginia, but you (and Laurence) live in a couple of the best parts of the country for avoiding really hot and humid weather. Oh, and the first air conditioned car we had was also a 1973 model — a Chevy Monte Carlo (no vinyl roof)!
My grandfather’s 1960 Cadillac Sedan de Ville. It was a very powerful system.
I recall taking a vacation from Illinois to Colorado one summer. We travelled with some friends who had an Imperial. Their air conditioning wasn’t up to the Kansas heat. We stopped and our friends had their air conditioning system checked out by a Chrysler dealer. He was told the system was working normally. The dealer said that Cadillac’s system was more powerful than the Imperial. The friend was pretty annoyed – if there had been a Cadillac dealer nearby, the car would have been traded.
A 1973 Ford Torino. My parent’s had a ’69 Fairlane when I was born and the Torino was purchased new shortly after my arrival.
At the time, my parents also had a ’70 F-100 without a/c. My grandmother had a ’71 Maverick with no a/c; my grandparents on the other side had a ’70 Impala with a/c.
I spent a week in Bend, Oregon, two years ago. It was great and I can see why a/c isn’t as prevalent out there.
We are having a cold snap in Jefferson City. After hitting 108 yesterday, the high today was only 93.
I well remember the first A/C car I rode in a XE Fairmont my uncles work car he collected us from Sydney airport on a sweltering day. A/C was an unheard of option in NZ in the early 80s unless you imported your new car from OZ and even now our climate barely warrants having it.
Living in Buffalo, A/C wasn’t ubiquitous when I was growing up. In fact the first cars I owned, an 80 Scirocco and 86 GTI had no A/C.
I can’t remember the first A/C car I rode in, but our family’s first A/C equipped car was a 1972 Buick Estate Wagon with its ice cold GM Frigidaire system necessary to fill the huge volume of that behemoth!
Interesting…I spent a lot of my formative years in the Western New York area also. And the first car OF MY OWN with air conditioning, was a Nissan pickup I bought in Denver, 1996…that sun in the Mile High City is IN-tense.
Prior to that, I just did without. Didn’t want the complexity. Didn’t want to pay for the gas to run it. Fact is, one of my Pintos and one of my Geos had A/C but disabled…belt off, compressors trashed. Never even thought of repairing either.
My, how times change. I tell myself I’ll junk my old Dodge van when the air conditioning no longer works. And truth is, I probably will.
’71 Vista Cruiser owned by my dad’s best friend. The first air-conditioned car we owned was an ’83 Renault Alliance. The ’66 Galaxie, the ’71 Impala, the ’74 Matador, the ’78 Chevy van — ovens the lot of them.
I don’t think my sons — 26, 15, and 13 — have ever ridden in a non-air-conditioned car.
Interesting question! It really points out the regional differences in climate. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest in the 60s and 70s, I can recall riding in one or two cars that were equipped with air conditioning, but no one ever used it! AC was and still is marginally necessary in our climate. I think the first time I ever rode in a car with the air conditioning actually turned on was in the mid-90s when I bought an 1984 Buick Century Olympic Edition that was pretty well optioned-up to the brim with everything except a vinyl top.
It got up to 90 here in Portland yesterday, so sometimes A/C is actually very welcome.
The bigger issue is that cars don’t have vented windows anymore, so getting cool air sans A/C can be difficult for the 5 days you need it every year in the PNW 🙂
To the best of my memory, it would have been either our ’68 Country Squire LTD, or Dad’s ’69 F-100 – he had installed an aftermarket “Frigi-King” unit which worked pretty good in the single cab of the truck.
Actually now that I think about it, it’s more likely my first air-conditioned ride would have been in one of my grandparents cars, probably their ’66 Tempest (OHC6) which later would become one of my COALs.
While I can’t remember exactly, I’m certain it was dad Impala SS two-door hardtop. The killer is going to be whether it was a ’63, ’64, or ’65 (definitely A/C in that one, and I know the ’62 Impala SS didn’t have it).
I can best remember that dad got A/C because he was tired of my mother’s two sisters fighting over how far the windows should go down on our annual July vacation trips.
Now, in terms of A/C ownership, that would be my 1979 Monza Kammback wagon. Neither my ’73 Vega GT or ’76 Monza 2+2 had A/C.
My father bought a nearly-new 1963 Chevy Bel Air when he was transferred from Mexico City to San Juan, PR. He had an aftermarket ac unit installed before shipping the car to San Juan. I’m sure he used it on his business trips, but I never found a need for it on dates. My mother’s 1964 Falcon didn’t have ac, nor a heater defroster, not uncommon in PR at that time. I drove my 1978 Rabbit for 16 years in the Washington DC area without ac. I think the first car I owned with ac was a 1979 Chevy Caprice that I bought from my father. I bought it for my wife and I rarely drove it so I’m not sure. My last four cars have not only had ac, but all had automatic climate control. All have worked perfectly. Set it and forget it. I tried some hypermiling in my 2012 Impreza. No ac, shut off the engine at Northern Virginia’s notoriously long traffic lights. I got precisely 1 mpg better mileage. The ac went back on. This past week the temperature here has been over 100 degrees (38 C). When I got in the car this afternoon to run an errand the thermo indicated 101. I had to hold onto the bottom of the steering wheel because the upper part was too hot to touch. As I got back to my apartment, a huge thunderstorm let loose, and just like last week, I lost power. So I’m at the office which still has power. Last week it was off for three days. Who knows how long it will be off this time. But the good news is that after today’s storm the temp dropped to 78 (26 C).
The first one – that I KNOW of – was a rather humble chariot, a 1968 Ford Galaxie. Not the one my old man bought; but the company car he had beforehand.
I say “that I know of” because my mother had several aunts and uncles who had done quite well. One had a 1957 Cadillac; don’t remember if I ever rode in it or not. He lived 500 miles away in Philadelphia and only came around in that car once; we stayed with him once. Memories at this distance are foggy; and I don’t remember if the Caddy had A/C.
The other aunt and her husband…childless and owned their own business and did well at it. So they both drove Cadillacs (at a time when a two-car household was still the exception). Again, don’t remember if they had air conditioning; those were 1963 or 1964 cars. In any event, they lived in the hills of upstate New York, where days requiring A/C were rare.
But that Galaxie. The old man, by that time, was a chain-smoker…and he didn’t believe in air conditioning in cars. Didn’t ask for it; but the buyer for the salesmen’s fleet thought air conditioning would pay in comfort, in hygiene, in client satisfaction; and in resale. So he had it…
Traveling with him in the summer was a PAIN. It was all about the cigarette smoke…his vent window would be open to suck out the fumes. He didn’t like the dashboard fan; that spread the smoke. He didn’t like an open window or for his passengers to open windows. And he would only use the air conditioning on the hottest days.
Part of the reason was, it wasn’t that well-integrated a unit. The air conditioning could cause that car to overheat and did several times. We tend to forget that, in this era of electric radiator fans, automatic cycling of the air compressor unit, and other cooling system improvements.
Anyway…we didn’t have a lot of truck with air conditioning. Not in the home; not in the school or church; not in the car. Occasionally a movie; but that was about it.
When it got too hot to stand, we’d turn the hose on each other. Nights we’d take cold baths.
Growing up in Flin Flon, no one had or needed AC, so I think it was the used ’69 Galaxie i bought second hand in ’75.
The first air-conditioned car I recall was my either my aunt’s 1961 Dodge – the one with the square steering wheel or her 1963 Dodge Dart with the huge A/C unit smack in the center of the dash, hanging below.
Mom and Dad never owned an air-conditioned car and mom’s very first new car after dad died – her 1979 AMC Concord – did have A/C.
I never owned A/C-equipped cars until I got married as wifey owned her 1970 Mustang. Our very first car with A/C was the 1976 Dart Lite with the Air-Temp unit below the dash. It worked when it felt like it…Ditto for the 1992 LeBaron. Every car since has had A/C except for the 1992 Jeep we owned as a fun car for less than two years, including the 2007 MX5 we just sold.
1986 Cavalier station wagon. I would assume that the 1977 Grand Marquis we had was air conditioned, but I was far too young to remember. The 1981 Citation we got to replace it had the dimpled plastic seats and no air, so you can imagine how hot that got. Finally my mother had her fill and got the Cavalier.
My grandparents never, ever had air. Not in the Vega, Gold Duster, 2 Fairmonts, Chevette, Shadow, T-2000, none of them.
1968 Chevy Impala SS 327 hardtop. Once A/C arrived in our part of the country (Tennessee), you didn’t order a car without it, if you could possibly help it. That was the car I was brought home from the hospital in.
I’m pretty sure it was my grandparents’ 1972 Mercury Montego MX Brougham. I think a big reason for buying the car was to have A/C for a cross country car trip they were planning, and took not too long after buying the Montego. There was nothing wrong with their previous car, which was a ’68 Galaxie coupe, except it didn’t have A/C.
My 1967 Checker taxi in Chicago had no ac. We low-ranking drivers got old beaters with no 2-way radios or ac. But Chicago only got hot enough for ac maybe one week a year. I can remember a trip to O’Hare one summer afternoon and a billboard next to the Edens indicated 100 degrees (38 C). Yeah, it was uncomfortable but I new it wouldn’t last long. My fare didn’t complain. A good heater was far more important.
The first car we had that actually had working AC was my dad’s 1978 F-150 Ranger XLT that he bought in 1982. It was the first truck I ever saw with AC, and I thought it was a big deal. Several months after that he brought home a 1980 Dodge Omni that didn’t have air. One hot summer trip to Tennessee and back and that was the end of that, we haven’t had a non air-conditioned car since.
My dad’s 1966 Ford Galaxie 500, Wimbledon White, Blue interior, 390.
I may only be 31, but I can remember the first car I rode in with A/C. My father worked for Chef Boyardee back in the 1980s. (Side note: that shelf-stable pasta you started seeing on store shelves about 12 years ago in plastic trays with a cellophane cover that you could microwave? My dad helped invent that in the mid-1980s. The trick was getting the chemistry of the pasta sauce just right. He managed to get it right, but at the time the container cost about $1.50 to manufacture, and they wanted to sell it, WITH food, for $1.99. Just wasn’t feasible cost wise at the time so it sat on the shelf for over ten years.)
Anyway, he went to some kind of international food convention in 1987 in Las Vegas, and brought my mother and I along. After the convention was over, we drove across the Mojave Desert to San Diego and Los Angeles. It was the beginning of my love affair with California that continues to this day. We rented a beige Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera International Series (I can still remember the badge with all the flags). It was the first time I ever experienced a car with A/C. Good thing too on that ride. Considering I lived in northeastern PA, it’s surprising I hadn’t experienced one before that, but then my family wasn’t exactly well off in those days. He never saw a dime from that invention, but he got into IT and now is a director at a major hospital system. I’ve become a consultant and tease him a bit that I’m already making more than him. How times have changed!
Neither home nor automobile a/c was common in small town midwest when I was growing up. As a child the first car I rode in with a/c was a new 60 Lincoln Continental owned by a friend of my mother’s. I remember a neighbor who had a 55 Chrysler New Yorker with a/c – always thought it remarkable when she drove by with the windows closed on a hot and humid day. When I took driver’s ed in the summer of 65 the school had two new cars on loan from local dealers – a maroon Impala four door hardtop with a/c and a Plymouth Fury III four door sedan without. I got the Fury but at least it was white! In college my best friend’s new 69 GTO had factory a/c.
Among my own cars, the first a/c was an aftermarket unit I had installed in my 69 VW – it was made by a company in Texas called Heatransfer. The condenser and evaporator were housed in a box which was installed behind the back seat with an opening in the floor pan behind which allowed the condenser to remove heat and the condenser-evaporator module to be connected by hoses to the engine compartment where the compressor was located. Cold air came in a vent attached to the box along the roofline from the back to the front of the car. It worked well in terms of cooling but was a drag on the low HP engine and on the standard electrical system.
Living in SoCal, out of necessity I’ve had factory a/c in every car after the Beetle, from a 72 Maverick onward, the last four with automatic temp control. Have had remarkably good luck with automobile a/c, most cars requiring no repairs and a few requiring minimal work or a simple re-charging. One of the coldest was an 85 300ZX Turbo that would freeze you very quickly and was almost equal to the system in my current G37 sedan.
As I recall, it would have been an early 60’s Cadillac (convertible, no less) that my aunt and uncle owned. My guess for family owning A/C was either my mother’s ’72 Nova, or my stepfather’s 73 Poncho wagon (he worked for Electromotive, and tended to option up a bit.) (My father’s 66 Mercury Monterey Breezeway wouldn’t count, but it helped in the humid midwest summers.)
My first A/C equipped car was a third-hand 70 Beetle I got in late ’73. It tended to break Freon lines, so most of the time the compressor was idled. The next A/C equipped car was a 80 Rabbit purchased in ’89. Didn’t start buying new A/C equipped cars until 2002. A/C came with the 2002 Focus ZX5, and the only ’03 Silverado for sale in Sept 03 had A/C, but not much else. I’ve gotten used to the mid-30/low 40s mornings we get, and when it’s in the low 90s, it’s nice to have some coolth.
“…had our first 80 degree day”
Eff you… it has been over 90 degrees for 10 straight days or something like that in New York City. I think it was 97 or something insane yesterday.
When I was a youngster, I’m pretty sure every car my dad ever owned had A/C – so either a late 70’s Ford Fairmont or a late 70’s Monte Carlo… however he was always on the road back then so it was a rare treat to ride in his car. Most of my youth was spent in my mom’s roasting hot piece of crap 1976 Chevrolet Nova sweltering on the brown vinyl.
Grand total of cars I’ve owned with working air conditioning in my life: one. And when I purchased it (an S12 200SX), the A/C didn’t work. I only broke down and fixed it because I was doing manual slave labor on the overnight shift at Newsday’s un-airconditioned printing press one summer and needed some kind of respite on my precious few breaks. What a terrible job. Also, one of my Jeeps had A/C that worked amazingly well for approximately 45 minutes one day driving back from Stamford, CT and never worked at all before or after. Maybe I hallucinated it…
Eff you… it has been over 90 degrees for 10 straight days or something like that in New York City.
If we’re going to start that sort of sniping…a friendly pox on both of you! Here in the Ozarks, it’s been at or over 100 for at least the past two weeks – unusually early – and no rain for weeks. We finally got an inch or so this weekend, and a “cool front” is bringing highs down to 90.
That’s craziness… I can’t even imagine. Although in the Ozarks, you also probably don’t have to cram up against a horde of sweaty, smelly people on a subway train every time you need to get somewhere!
I love the Pacific Northwest climate – went to San Fransisco once and the summer there would be equivalent to mid-autumn here. Easily my favorite kind of weather.
Note that SF weather isn’t typical of the Pacific Northwest. For that matter, it’s not typical of most of the rest of the Bay Area. Lots of fog from marine layers keep the temps down in summertime. I’ve been in San Jose with highs in the 80s or higher and froze my tail in SF the same day.
September in SF has some of the nicest weather it gets. Most of the tourists have gone home, too, so that’s another plus.
September through early November in the Bay Area has great, shirtsleeve weather . . . even better in Alameda and the rest of the East Bay. Much like here in Hawaii my favorite time of year is November through Christmas. Highs in the mid-upper 70s. Low 60’s at night.
We were there in late August/early September, and actually stayed in San Jose or somewhere near there if I’m remembering correctly. Absolutely beautiful! I know the Bay Area is different from Oregon, but I’m using my imagination, and they’ve gotta be at least somewhat similar compared to my sole point of reference – which is: rarely having traveled outside the Northeast US.
Wikipedia + The Weather Channel have led me to believe that the PNW is a place where you can wear a hooded sweatshirt most of the year and be very comfortable. Seems the temperature hovers somewhere between high 70s and mid 40s… plus the streets are littered with old French/Japanese automotive relics? What a glorious place! I really hope to make it out there one day, it’s very high on my list of travel destinations.
My first ride in an air conditioned car was also a Cadillac Sixty Special, but it was a 1952 and I was 5 days old.
I can’t remember a car without air conditioning. Growing up in Southern California, and then moving out on my own to mostly desert climates (including the one I live in now) it’s a necessity.
As others have noted, it’s funny how the answer to this question varies according to where you’ve lived. Having been born in Baton Rouge, my first ride in an air conditioned car was was exactly 48 years ago, in July of 1964…when my parents brought me home from the hospital in a 1962 Pontiac Catalina.
According to my mother, this was not their first car with a/c, as my father was a regional sales manager. She’s not sure, but their first was either a 1959 Impala, or the car prior to that one (Mom can’t recall the make, and we have no photos, as we do of the “cat eye” Impala).
Even my 1992 F-150 has working a/c, and truthfully, I don’t think I’ll ever go without it. It’s not that expensive to repair, and the benefits to comfort – and keeping the windows clear in defroster mode – are too great.
“it’s funny how the answer to this question varies according to where you’ve lived.”
True, that. Most of us aren’t old enough to remember when a HEATER was optional; but I do remember old-timers remembering it to me. And I remember being in Texas in 1981, needing a beater…and finding some early-1960s cars that did NOT have a heater.
If you lived in the Southern states; or if your previous car was a Beetle…you probably didn’t feel you needed to spend all that money on a heater….
I grew up, and still live in, inland Massachusetts. I don’t remember the first car I rode in with air conditioning, but my parents did not begin buying cars with a/c on a consistent basis until the very late ’80s/early ’90s. The first car I remember my parents owning with working a/c was a ’78 Buick Century 4-door slantback sedan which they bought used in 1982. It was later replaced by an ’87 Plymouth Sundance, bought new in the summer of ’86, which definitely did not have a/c. During the same period, my dad had a ’76 Ford Club Wagon; I can’t remember if it had a/c or not. I’m pretty sure his ’89 GMC S-15 Jimmy did, and probably every vehicle they’ve had since then. The Sundance, which they drove until 1992, was probably their last car without a/c.
My first car was the aforementioned ’78 Buick, but by the time I got it, the a/c wasn’t working, and I never got it fixed. My second car, an ’85 Plymouth Turismo which I bought used in 1989 and owned until 1995, did not have a/c. The Turismo was replaced by a new ’95 Ford Escort which had a/c. With the exception of one of two beaters in the ’90s that I drove while my wife got the good car, everything we’ve owned since then has had a/c. The last time I owned a car without a/c was in 1999.
As others have already mentioned for other parts of the country, my recollection is that in the ’70s it wasn’t all that common for cars here to have a/c. Even in the ’80s, while most “nicer” cars had a/c, many smaller/cheaper cars lacked it. I recall my uncle who moved to Florida in 1990 being told to get rid of his a/c-less ’87 Escort before he moved, because he wouldn’t want to drive it in Florida, and wouldn’t be able to sell it or trade it in there, either. Sometime in the ’90s or ’00s, things changed, and it’s probably hard to find a late-model car here without a/c today.
Home a/c is similar. We actually still don’t have it, but we’ve become outliers in that respect. The house I grew up in didn’t have a/c. My parents’ current house has a/c in limited areas. If we ever upgrade to a better house, we’ll probably get it at that point, if we don’t break down and get it sooner.
Why did things change? I think some of it is just people becoming accustomed to it over time. I’ve said that I never cared about having a/c in my car until I had an important enough place to be that I couldn’t show up looking like I was just riding in a car with sweaty hair and all the windows rolled down. But I really think our climate has changed over the years. When I was a kid, it seems like we’d have a few days of hot, unbearably humid weather every now and then. Now it seems like we routinely have weeklongs spells of that type of weather where it doesn’t even cool off at night.
Our climate is always changing.
I remember the 1960s; about four solid summers like this one. And mild winters, too.
Then there have been cooler stretches…the 1970s. The hottest period recorded – and those records only go back for about 140 years, just a blink of an eye – those were the the mid-1930s. Hotter and drier in more places than ever, before or since.
The Dust Bowl years.
The thing of it is, we just got spoiled…stores, homes, now cars and even schools…all climate controlled. We haven’t really had to deal with the heat; and when you pass into it for half an hour after being comfortably cooled all day, it seems all the hotter.
The first a/c car I can testify to riding in is my dad’s ’69 Dodge Monaco Brougham(!) in Dark Green Metallic with black vinyl. This was also dad’s first car with power windows. Quite a change from the ’61 Ford Fairlane with 6-cyl., 3 on the tree, radio, heater, and that was it (i.e., vacuum wipers and no windshield washer), or the ’64 Mercury Monterey with standard 390 V-8, auto trans, radio, and that was it.
The Monaco also was the first car I drove on a road trip, in ’71 on vacation to Colorado and Utah with the parents now that I had my NJ drivers license. I would guess I drove about 2/3 of the miles on that trip, with Dad doing the first stint in the morning, then spelling me at some point during the day, and Mom taking a stint but mostly napping or looking at the scenery.
Dad was a surprisingly good passenger, only admonishing me to hold the speed down if I let it creep above 80 or so. Otherwise he let me get the job done and smoke the occasional cigarette.
A timely topic. I vividly remember it – a 1966 Buick Electra 225, that belonged to some family friends. A big white sedan with black interior. The air smelled slightly musty, but was cold.
We were backwards – our house (built in 1959) came with central air, but my parents continued to drive non-a/c cars for quite awhile. After my parents divorced, Dad got a 69 Delta 88 company car with air, and soon left the company and got a 69 LTD. Once he had air, there was no turning back. Mom’s first car with air was the 72 Cutlass Supreme.
I did not have a car with air until the 77 New Yorker I got in 1985 before I had my first new car, and the 85 GTI had it too. I tried going without with the 66 Fury III, but it was tough. Fortunately, my new girlfriend (now Mrs. JPC) had a nearly new Accord with air, so we made do.
I have ranted before but the deletion of valves to shut the hot water off from the heater core and the lack of vent windows and fresh air floor vents have almost made a/c mandatory on even the cheapest cars. There is nothing worse than a vent system blowing hot air at you on a hot day.
Yeah, that heater blast bothers me, too…there’s absolutely NO way the blender doors can stop off all air off the heater core.
On my Datsun King Cab, there were no blender doors in the heating system; there was just a watercock, a valve controlled with a long lever and a control cable. Adjusting temperature was kinda tricky; what worked on a long cruise on the freeway wouldn’t work so well in stop-and-go traffic with the engine often idling and the pump not able to force water past the cracked valve. BUT…it did shut off the heat when closed; and it made the whole heater system a lot simpler.
I’d like to get a similar valve for the cars I have now…doesn’t even need to have an inside control. Just close it when it’s hot, and you’re not expecting cooler temperature. And if you guess wrong, it’s just a matter of opening the hood and turning the handle.
I have thought about the same thing.
Hmmm, I haven’t heard (or remembered) this rant, and I hadn’t thought of it. The Forester’s non-a/c air definitely comes in a bit warmer than the true outside air temp, but my Xb’s vent seems almost the same as the ambient air. It has a very effective ventilation, with big outlets aimed well, and combined with it being white, and having vertical windows allows me to drive with windows rolled up in surprisingly warm temps, much higher than her dark green Forester. I wall add of course that our air is also much less humid, which makes it feel cooler.
A good question there Paul.
My first experience with AC in a car was most likely the ’64 Dodge 330 wagon with the venerable 225 slant six and torqueflite autobox (with push buttons no less!). The reason was simple, the ’60 Dart Seneca they’d bought gently used in ’61 to take with them to Europe had issues after being shipped back sate side and my Mom insisted they replace it with a wagon and one with AC, so after finally convincing my Dad, they bought the white with blue interior wagon there in Jacksonville FL that summer.
They had to get the dog from my Dad’s sister Dean in N. Georgia and then drive through flyover country in August to get to Washington State, hence the insistence on the AC option. I would be born the following January so don’t recall the first few years with that car.
The next AC equipped car my parents had was the ’76 Vega Kamback wagon my Mom got used in ’78 that had AC and the 3spd autobox. A great little wagon and all cars since then have been AC for the most part.
Virtually all cars I’ve had since 1992 had AC but two of them didn’t work, the ’88 Honda Accord and the Ranger I recently had. I also had the Airtemp under-dash dealer installed AC unit in my very first car, a ’68 Chrysler Newport and it didn’t work back in the day. Oh it blew air, just was NOT cold.
BTW, my ’83 Honda Civic had AC and once recharged, it worked like a charm until 1997 when it quite, likely for good. the Mazda has working AC in it now and I’m ever so grateful for it as I USE it, even in this climate. Nothing like cold dryer air than humid warm air while driving, and besides, I’d rather hear the music than the rustle of the wind while driving with the windows open any day.
A great experience of that was in the late 80’s when my oldest sister picked me up to take me down to visit them from Georgia. She arrived in a bright red 82 Chevette sans AC and we drove with the windows down and could barely hear each other talk, let alone the radio with its speakers in the way back compartment. No thanks.
My Grandpa’s 1997 Toyota Corolla (in around the year 2000).
My family always had very old cars. When I was a kid (back in 2000ish), we had a 1983 Chevrolet Celebrity (ours was an ex-Universiade ’83 car, my dad put in Police-spec seats and an engine from an ’84). We also had a 1986 GMC High Sierra (blue and white).
During my childhood, we had a few cars at the house. Family friends would off-load their junk to us, my dad would fix it up and try to sell it for a profit. It never really did turn a profit, but we did have a bunch of cars that I was exposed to.
Some of those include a 1980 Chevrolet Malibu Coupe (in brown), a 1990 Ford Taurus station wagon.
Every year we’d go down to Quebec to visit my grandpa (who was in his 80s at the time). His ’97 Corolla is the first air-conditioned car I’ve been in.
1957 Olds Holiday with special order air. Large unit in the trunk, the size of a small steamer trunk. The air circulated via clear plastic tubes from the trunk through the rear window deck and under the sides of the headliner. Honest, Chicago 1957-58. Owned by the father of a lad I went to high school with, The owners of Gibby’s Restaurant, 2nd floor NW corner of Lake and Clark Sts. Michael Todd hung out there when he was visiting his family. Interesting card games for a kid of 15…
A native of Iowa City—born there ’45, left ’70 after finishing a couple degrees at SUI, but visit occasionally since my parents continue to live in the “Goose Town” home in which Mom was born literally—I really enjoy reading Paul Niedermeyer’s continuing accounts of his beginning auto experiences there. The Sixties proved to be an interesting time in which to be living in a university community, in addition to the many types of automobiles designed,built,sold&available to be driven then. Learned to drive in a ’52 Willys, loaded fifteen friends with me in Dad’s ’55 Chevy four door sedan (my steady sat in my lap shifting gears while I worked the clutch,brake&accelerator with my feet and reached around her to steer) to motor out tobogganing&back. Drove ’60(English)Ford Consul to City High, shared ’61Corvair while at SUI. Convinced Dad to test drive the new Avanti, but he was a GM person for his new car purchases. Also touted the Pontiac OHC6 that resulted in two Firebird purchases. Tom McCahill in *Mechanix Illustrated* was my source for tests&information on new cars in the Fifties(after I learned how to read)&Sixties.
Stumbled over the CC website now six months back. There’s such a tremendous amount of info included in its various articles! Plus the photos and well written&edited.
Answer to today’s question: ’58 Cadillac purchased new that belonged to buddy’s dad. Car was more garaged than driven. Not that unusual policy back then: Purchasing something really nice, but then not driving it that much.
Thanks, and welcome to the CC party! Some colorful memories you have made. Maybe one of these days you’d like to write one up in more detail?
First air-conditioned car I rode in was the first one in our family: my grandparents’ 1973 Volvo 164E. I wasn’t quite born when they bought it new, but they had it until replacing it with a 264GLE in 1980. My Gran liked the a/c icey cold, a trait I inherited. All their cars therafter had a/c, with their 1991 EA2 Ford Fairmont Ghia being the first with digital climate control.
My parents’ first car with a/c was either their 1984 Toyota Townace (aka ‘Van’ in the States) bought in 1990, or possibly the 1990 Ford Telstar (aka Mazda 626) wagon bought in 1993. My parents are old school and don’t like digital climate control, they prefer a slider with hot at one end, cold at the other, and an a/c on/off button. When they recently traded their Hyundai Tucson on a Subaru Legacy (their third, the Tucson was a brief aberration), they were sorry to find the Legacy had digital climate…
I first scored a/c in an ’86 Honda Accord I bought in 2001, and have had it since in my Nissans. The system in my C35 Laurel is unusual as it combines a knob for temperature, buttons for demisting and fresh/recirculated, yet the mode and fan are separate touch-screen controls on the touchscreen. The Infiniti QX4 had a similar unit. You get used to it, but really, it’s not a patch on the efficient design of my old ’05 Mazda 6.
Friends of my parents bought a 53 or 54 Cadillac with A/C. (Whichever was the first year air conditioning was available in Cadillac.) I recall that most of the equipment was in the trunk and there were two big plastic nozzles coming out of the package tray to blow air up and forward.
Anyway, filter cigarettes were just coming on the market and my parents were smokers. They went on a ride with friends in the new Cadillac to try out the A/C and try out the new filter cigarettes. They did not understand how the filters worked and were lighting them! Terrible stink. All thought the odor was coming from the air conditioner so it was turned off. Of course dealer could find nothing wrong. After some sleuthing the problems with lighting the wrong end of the cigarettes was discovered. I was too young to understand it at the time but of course my parents were terribly embarrassed.
First air conditioned car our family owned was a 64 Galaxie 500 with 390 engine – really fast.
The ’53 Cadillac and the filter cigarettes – best story of the day. Although it’s early, I don’t forsee anybody topping this one.
I can tell you that 1953 was the year for a/c in GM cars. I have an old book of my grandfather’s celebrating the history of the auto, and it covered up to 1953 – the new GM a/c systems were mentioned prominently. All of the early systems were trunk mounted, and you could tell the a/c cars by the little air scoops atop the rear quarter panels. I have read that passengers complained of cold heads in those early 1950s systems.
Mine was the next door neighbor’s nearly-new gold ’68 Buick Skylark Sportwagon when I was 7. It may not have been the first one I rode in equipped with A/C, but it was first one where it was actually being used.
The first one I actually owned was a ’70 Fury III sedan in 1983. The A/C actually worked, which was really appreciated during an El Paso summer (I was in the Army at the time). Really slowed down that 318, though…
I recall as a kid in the 1960s-early 1970s that the conventional wisdom among my parents’ friends was that you couldn’t put a/c on a 4 or 6 cylinder car because it would “overload the engine.” Funny how a little Falcon 6 could get loaded to the hilt with a ton or more of cargo in an Econoline, but put an a/c compressor on a Falcon sedan and DOOM!
And for a differente perspective…
My first A/C car was a Peugeot 205 Roland Garros (1990, bought in 1997) but the HVAC system tended to break regularly.
I have to say that despite coming from Spain, my family never had a car with A/C as a child: Seat 850, Seat 127, Opel Corsa TR and Ford Orion. Grrrr…
This article, and all the comments, reminds me of my affinity for the knowledge of when real “luxury items” were first available on cars. A lot of them were introduced after WWII, like power windows, but some were more a fifties/sixties thing, like the fifties A/C mentions of the tubes eminating from the rear shelf then the air coming through the headliner.
Probably the most “teched out” car of this era was the 1957 Eldorado Brougham with its air suspension, power trunk lid, memory seats, etc.
I believe that Packard actually pioneered an automotive a/c system shortly before WWII, maybe 1940. I am sure that it was not as good as the 1950s systems, but had to have been very impressive when most peoples’ only exposure to a/c was a movie theater.
Edit. According to GreatestAchievements.org’s air conditioning and refrigeration timeline, the Packard system was indroduced on the 1939 models. Also, it was not until 1969 that half of new cars were a/c equipped, which sort of squares with my memories of growing up in northeast Indiana.
Thanks for the update.
I think power windows were available on a ’39/’40 Packard, as well. And yes, can you imagine driving around in the early 1940s with A/C and electric windows in your car? It must have really felt like you were riding in the future.
Here’s a clip I found regarding the availability of the first automobile A/C. It was Packard and it was in 1938 (so probably the ’39 models):
Growing up in Texas, I was probably brought home from the hospital (in 1967) in an air conditioned car. I think my mom said their first car with air conditioning was a 1961 Valiant, and they were of very limited means. But air conditioning was a VERY important and popular innovation in Texas, for both homes and cars, as well as businesses. It basically allowed places like Texas to become as populated as they are now. Even though we always had a car with air when I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, my dad drove a pickup truck with no A/C at all up until 1981! I guess it just wasn’t in the budget. Mom always had the car with A/C, and believe me, it got plenty of use! Every car I’ve ever owned personally has had it, except the 1979 Honda Accord I bought about 3 years ago.
In 1956, my father bought a new Ford Country Squire for my mother – in black. Black cars and Virginia summers are a bad mix, so Dad quickly had the dealer install an under-dash air conditioner. Oh, bliss!
Coincidentally, for me it was a 1962 Cadillac, when my dad was seriously considering buying a Series 62 two door hardtop, sandalwood beige, those were the days when you could bring a new car home overnight for a test drive. Living in L.A., air conditioning was becoming a must for our family by that time. I can vividly recall the small beads of condensation that formed on the chrome plated A/C vents in that car, and luxuriating in the cool air. As I’ve written before, my mom put the kibosh on that car (too expensive), and the next year he traded our ’59 Ford Galaxie for a ’63 Mercury Monterey Custom 4-door hardtop, specially ordered, with A/C, and power windows, too, a first for us! It was a factory installed unit that hung down under the dash, sort of in your way all the time, and I recall that the vent louvers were always breaking. Worked well, otherwise, though. Also about the same time, my grandmother, who lived in the Palm Springs area, traded in her ’56 DeSoto for a ’62 Buick LeSabre, which was her first car with A/C. Fun memories!
Some say we’re ‘spoiled’, but in old days on hot summer nights in Chicago, people went to public parks or Lake Michigan shore to sleep. Unthinkable today!
Fun fact (or myth?): I’ve heard that back when air conditioning was a luxury option, people who didn’t have it would roll up the windows right before arriving (at restaurant, hotel, etc) to make it look like they did!
Chris, the version I heard is that some people kept the windows up all the time (and sweated) just to fool everyone that they had a/c!
I know we never did that, but it’s plausible that some did, at least on marginally hot days (not like the 100+ degree days we’ve been having of late).
I grew up in San Rafael . . . right on the bay, but eastward facing. My Dad used to drive into the City (San Francisco) daily until about 1972. Anyway, the first A/C car I remember driving in was my Grandparents’ 1964 Dodge Custom 880 sedan. They lived in Missouri, where A/C was more than welcome inland with the hot and humid summers. Every car since then they had was A/C equipped. The first car my parents in California bought with A/C was the 1971 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. I could count on both hands and come up with two fingers left over when I recall my Dad using the A/C on the Olds in the Bay Area. Now he lives in Phoenix!!
I don’t believe factory A/C was standard on Cadillacs until after 1969 . . . I do recall seeing in Santa Rosa as a kid a ’67 Fleetwood sans A/C (the car was parked and the windows down)>
Believe it or not, air conditioning was not standard on Cadillacs until 1975, though the take rate from like 1967 and up was something like 99.9% so practically every Cadillac had air conditioning, the only ones I could see not having air conditioning were commercial chassis cars being converted to hearses, flower cars and ambulances, but even most of those that I’ve seen were equipped with air, but there are a few of them out there.
My dad bought a ’64 Country Squire around 1968 — that was about his timing for car buying — that had an under-dash A/C unit.
My first car with an A/C unit was a 1968 Pontiac Catalina coupe, purchased with $500 of my burger-flipping kitty in 1974. The A/C didn’t work, which was perfectly in-character for the car.
I’m guessing I didn’t own a car with A/C that did work until I bought a 1987 Mitsu Precis new. In that case, the A/C outlasted the car.
I am going to have to say that I am spoiled, the first car I rode in with air conditioning was the Electra 225 Limited coupe I rode home from the hospital in. We have had air conditioned cars in our house hold since 1967 when my grandfather bought my grandmother a brand new Malibu SS with a/c, the first car I ever owned without any air conditioning(working or not) was my 65 Corvair, its also the first car I ever owned that didn’t power windows either!
1987 Plymouth Reliant LE coupe…
I cannot remember riding in an A/C car until I bought my 76 Dodge Royal Monaco new. (a $ 400 (?) option) I can remember it freezing me out very early in its life, and I seemed to always get a headache when driving with the A/C. The Dodge was only warranted for a year, and the A/C didn’t last much longer. I recall getting it repaired once, but it didn’t last very long. At some point, I tried to repair it myself, with unsuccessful results.
Still have the Dodge with broken A/C. I didn’t have working air until buying a 93 Cadillac Deville in 1995.
I drove two different air conditioned 77 Chryslers with that Mopar/Airtemp V-twin compressor. Both of them had a rhythmic shudder at idle, the only cars I ever experienced that did that. Did your Monaco do that too?
Yes.
A 76 Royal Monaco? Have you seen our CC on that car? https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1976-dodge-royal-monaco-gone-and-forgotten/
Yes, mine is the same model, with back windows that roll down. A true 2 dr hardtop. Drive out price, no trade $ 5,600. Astral blue metallic, blue vinyl top, and blue Princeton cloth seats.
Still looks decent with 62K on the clock. The Dodge was a real prima donna until about 20 years ago. Hardly ever used til then. Allways had other cars to drive. The paint is thin and faded, rust is at a minimum, seats have a couple of rips, but all in all, the car is quite decent. A staller since new, needs to be warmed up before driven. My other cars have taken over garage and storage rights since about 1997.
I still get compliments on the car, even in its run down state. I wish I had garaged it all this time, for it would still look like new. The car certainly isn’t worth any type of restoration, but for now, it sits under a car cover, driven to golf or store one a week or so. The last time I got gas, a older guy wanted to buy it, and proceeded to tell in detail what he would do to it if his. Always enjoy chatting with guys like that. Many thousands would be needed to do all he suggested.
1983 rover 3500 Vanden plas .A/C was an option and only Jags And RR had them as standard in the day.. System ment 2 less dash vents than the non A/C model?. Got cold air for about a week before leaks . The cruise control lasted about the same time too.An american item!. How did you folks get on with the 3500 in the USA?.
Badly. There are about 3 of them left here.
The first air-conditioned car i ever rode in happened to be the first air conditioned car my father bought new in 1979, i was in sixth grade then and though i probably rode in an air conditioned car before then i dont remember it, i chalk it up to being to young and most in my family either owned pickups, Fords only thank you, or just liked the windows down, my mother did not get her drivers permit until i started college so dad had a string of un-airconditioned vehicles. Hisfirst new one being a 1965 Ford Mustang GT, 225hp 4bbl, and 4 speed from factory that he still owns and the others being ford trucks, 4 wheel drive all, no air, but all had opt. sliding rear window. I attribute this to his being a telephone man and avid hunter which meant to him you had to be able to handle the elements, leave the air conditioned cars to my older uncles and grandfathers. Anyway the first was a 1979 ford Fairmont Country Squire wagon right off the show room floor, it was optioned totallly out, meaning a car that started off around 4000 dollars ended up costing him around 8000, so those of you familiar with ford option lists at the time know this was a Fairmont with all the toys, which made it nice, even my younger yuppy uncle at the time bought a new volvo which was twice the price even liked it. and my father never bought another unairconditioned car since. I even inherited it when he bought my mom her first new car, An 89 Mustang, and all his trucks after that were the same. Even my beater 96 ford f150xl, bright red , inline awesome fuel injected 6, and 4 speed manual with overdrive and 4 wheel drive even has air. I guess that fancy fairmont in 1979 spoiled us all.
The ’64 Impala I grew up with had factory air, but it stopped working sometime in the mid-70s. Whatever part that had failed — I think it was suction throttling valve — was unavailable at the time, so when my Dad finally had the system fixed in 1981, it used parts from a ’65 Chevrolet.
Growing up, my parents treated air conditioning as a special occasion. Don’t ask me why we had to broil on clear plastic seat covers and vinyl seats in the middle of a West Texas summer. My Mom might turn on the A/C coming back from the grocery store so the ice cream wouldn’t melt, but I guess melting children was another matter. When we drove our ’70 Chevy Townsman wagon from Texas to New Hampshire in the summer of 1977, I’d bet my parents turned on the air maybe half the time. Maybe.
I drove the Impala after I got my driver’s license in the summer of 1982, and my Dad bitched at me for running the A/C virtually all the time. It wasn’t like he was paying for the gas, so I don’t know what his problem was. I told him. “You spent a lot of money to get it working again, it works great, I’m going to be comfortable.” I also put a towel over those damn clear plastic seat covers.
Growing up, all we had in the house was a swamp cooler with one vent in the hallway that was supposed to cool the whole house (it didn’t). The best you could hope for was ~80º on a typical summer day in West Texas. My parents finally installed central air after I moved away for college. I was back for a visit around Memorial Day after it had been installed. It was close to 100º, but my Dad wouldn’t turn it on. Finally, I went to the thermostat and turned it on. “I don’t want to use it until June 1!” my Dad protested. “It’s 100º outside. Who cares about the friggin’ calendar!” As cool air started coming out the vents, he didn’t get up to turn it off.
My parent’s 1964 Plymouth Valiant had factory A/C and they bought it new. After that we always had one family car with air conditioning, although second car didn’t get A/C until 1987 and the house made do with an attic fan until 1984. I don’t remember the A/C in the Valiant, but it was sold when I was 4. My first two cars didn’t have A/C either, 78 and 81 Sciroccos, but the 84 Jetta did have something resembling air conditioning.
Living in Western Oregon I made do without central air conditioning at home for years but lately the summers have been getting hotter so I’m happy to have central air at home and in my car.
When I moved to Oregon 9 years ago, central air was on my must-have list. Some locals said “you don’t need air conditioning in Oregon.” “The hell I don’t,” I replied. It’s been quite pleasant in my house the past couple of weeks.
So it’s pleasant with or without the a/c? Central Oregon varies, depending on the altitude. Bend stays pretty comfy in the summer, since it’s 4000 feet high. But go to Christmas Valley or such, and it’s mighty toasty there.
With the A/C. Even though nights cool off nicely, it’s hard to get the heat out of the house.
The trick is to run box fans in the windows all night and get the house real cool, then close up in the morning. I have about half a dozen on hand for the occasional heat wave. But if your house is poorly insulated, that doesn’t work so well. Folks keep their windows open and run fans all day, just sucking in the hot air. Oh well…
ok guys, i love this site, it is the main one i visit daily, but this is about car air conditioning isnt it.? I mean thats what i wrote about and thats what i wanta read about. thanks guys for an awesome site. Please dont attack me for complaining its been a long child and work filled no good day so im sorry if this is whiny. yall have a good one, i see a lot of cool classics in WV. if i get the time i should send a few pics in, u see people driving cars here that i bet few even remember.
I remember my parents talking about their first trip in an air conditioned car, a ’53 Cadillac Coupe de Ville which was owned by another couple they hung around with. During the summer of ’53, they all took a trip to Myrtle Beach, SC and mother says she recalls the relaxed comfort they drove in that hot July day. This was a new experience for them and one that led to my father eventually purchasing his first air conditioned car a few years later, but more on that in a moment
Mom recalls how they would pull up at a stoplight and notice other motorist looking at the Cadillac simply because it was a Cadillac and then noticing the air conditioner intake scoops on the rear quarter panels and the closed windows. People would point and you could make out them saying “that car is air-conditioned”.
Dad’s first a/c car was a ’55 Studebaker President Ulttra Vista sedan purchased from the Charlotte, NC Studebaker dealer, Nance Motors. It was the personal car for Mrs. Nance and used as a demonstrator as well since it was fully loaded. Dad got it for a good deal when the dealer replaced it with a fully loaded with a/c ’56 President Classic in black and white with wire wheels.
However, my first ride in an air conditioned car was a ’61 Ford Fairlane 500 that belonged to my Godmother. This was the car I was brought home from the hospital in and it had just been purchased a few weeks before. It was the Selectaire system that mounted under the dash.
I remember the ’55 Studebaker with the trunk mounted air conditioner and standing up in the back seat with my face in the discharge tube enjoying the cold air. It was a pleasure to travel in South Georgia during the hot summer months. And, like someone else posted, since we had a/c in our car before we had it in our house, many miles were put on the car riding around many hot nights to escape the heat in the house.
7-16-12
Dateline: Houston, Texas in the 1950s
Growing up in Houston in the ’50s brings back school memories. When you were writing at your desk, the sweat on your arm would cause the paper to stick. The wet armprint curled the paper. Then we got into the bus which had all the windows closed due to potential sudden rainstorms. A bus sitting in the 90+ sunshine created 120+ heat inside. Then the windows went down and the 90+ wind blasted us in the face on the way home. At home we only had an attic fan to suck in the hot humid air. It was awful. By 1955 a few friends had purchased one or two window units. Suddenly those houses became more popular to us.
As a fifth grader, I always read the Popular Science magazines dad subscribed to. The summer of 1955 I read an old 1953 copy we had which described Cadillac’s, Buick’s, Oldsmobiles and Chryslers were producing air conditioner units to cool the cars. Wow!
I wondered what it would feel like to drive around in cool air. Soon enough a friend’s mom bought a new 1955 Oldsmobile 98 green-white sedan WITH FACTORY AIR. She took us that summer to see Oklahoma. We drove to town finally…cool as a cucumber. She also had the latest auto fashion, clear plastic seat covers. As we sat down wearing shorts the plastic was nice and cool on our legs.
However, on the way home, she had parked the car with the windows up, per Houston custom. As we sat down on the clear plastic seat covers, we hit the roof! We thought that we had blistered our legs. Quickly, the trusty Olds AC cooled us off. To me driving home that day was heaven.
A few years later, out first AC car was a beautiful, black, 1961 Chrysler Newport. It sported the last tailfins that Chrysler produced and also provided a space-ship styled dash with the TorqueFlite transmission push buttons on the left of the steering wheel and the AC pushbuttons symmetrically placed on the right of the steering wheel. On top of the dash four periscope shaped AC vents would pull forward and rotate. Airtemp AC produced ice cold air.
It has been in our barn at the ranch since 1974.
Auto AC has fascinated me since the 1950’s; consequently, I am currently writing a book about the subject.
7-16-12
Our black 1961 Chrysler Newport sported not only the last Chrysler tailfins, but also a space-ship themed dash with symmetrical transmission and AC push buttons and distinctive periscope style rotating AC vents placed on top of the dash.
It sounds like it will be a fascinating book for people like us here at CC. Those of you who grew up way down south before a/c was common have, I’m sure, more of an appreciation for its benefits than do us northerners.
When I was a kid, my parents had a ’77 Plymouth Volare and a ’77 Buick Skylark–neither one had AC. we live in Florida btw. wasn’t until my mom replaced the Plymouth with a new ’89 Nissan Sentra 2 door that we finally knew what AC felt like. Of course my brother and I weren’t much better off having to cram into that tiny backseat, AC or not.
Growing up in Europe in the late ’80s, the first car my parents bought that had a/c was an ’87 Citroën BX Break that my parents bought lightly used when it was a year old (like the one in the picture, but light blue). In those days, having a car with a/c in Europe wasn’t very common, much less a European car with a/c (and an automatic transmission, power windows, etc., for that matter). It would take around half a decade for those things to become slightly more common, with the Japanese brands leading the charge. The German automakers took their sweet time making these creature comforts standard features. However, after having had that one Citroën, we would never have a car without a/c again–making the search for a good used car that much harder.
I’ve always thought my family was much more at home in the US when it came to cars and driving. My dad never liked rowing his own gears or driving fast; my mom did like these things, but couldn’t because of a chronic knee injury, and thus required cars with automatic transmissions. The a/c, power windows, power steering and amazing comfort (thanks to its hydropneumatic suspension!) of that Citroën definitely spoiled them, and that car’s features would become the standard they’d compare all their future cars to, and thus they always ended up driving well-quipped cars with large-for-their-size engines. They traveled around a lot, and didn’t stay in the US for very long, but I did–and I haven’t left yet. My taste in cars has been influenced by my parents: I tend to prefer old man’s cars or sleepers for their comfort and features. No- I don’t have a Panther (yet; I’ve been eyeing them from a distance), but I think my current Volvo qualifies nonetheless, and so did all the old Saabs, the harvest gold Ford Taurus (*bows head in shame*), and perhaps even the Citroën 2CV I have stashed away in storage right now.
My Father was a big convertible man (1960 Ford Sunliner, 1965 Plymouth Sport Fury) but was very frugal. He figured if you could put the top down, you didn’t need air-conditioning.
We had a friend who drove a 1964-65 Buick Electra 225 convertible, white with red interior. His car had AC and we used to ride around with him on hot Baltimore summer nights with the top down and the AC on. Super luxurious.
Oddly enough, he traded it on a VW Karman Ghia coupe. Later he had a mid-70’s Buick LeSabre with special pinstriping that included his initials.
Riding “shotgun” in a ’53 Mercury Custom coupe with a Frigiking, ca. 1956… Air-conditioning a flathead must have required an 10-row radiator….
The first car I rode in with a/c was my mom’s 1969 Olds Delta 88 4 door hardtop, base model car with vinyl top, am radio, and a/c…which my dad rarely turned on unless they were dressed up to go to a dinner party or something..he wouldn’t use it on long trips because it allegedly gave him a headache. We would travel from Cincinnati to Sanibel Island with the windows down, sticking to hot green vinyl seats…and on the way home, add some sand to the mix, so not only did your skin stick, but the sand irritated it too. The first car I owned with working a/c was a 1985 Ford Escort Pony with dealer installed air that had one setting…blowing right in your face, which dried out my contact lenses and made the whole thing a pain in the butt. I still prefer manual a/c controls to the “climate control” where you set a temp and the system does the thinking for you.