Over the past several years, I’ve detailed much of the early history of automotive air conditioning in my Cold Comfort series of posts. However, air conditioning did not really become commonplace until the 1970s: Prior to that time, more than 50% of cars were still sold without A/C. So how did all these people keep cool? Let’s take a look.
Made in the Shade
The first order of business in staying cool in a car is to keep sunlight off of you. This was not a trivial concern back in the early days of the automobile, when all cars were open cars. In 1903, Packard commissioned a vehicle to be driven from San Francisco to New York to demonstrate the reliability of their cars. During the desert part of the journey, the drivers fitted an umbrella to the car to shield them from the unrelenting desert sun, pictured above, making this one of the earliest examples of automotive passenger cooling.
Studebaker Accessory Venetian Shades
As cars became enclosed, the need to block sunlight became reduced, but not eliminated. Studebakers famed “Is it coming or going” 1947-52 Starlight coupe featured a back seat surrounded by a dramatic wraparound rear window. Alas, this rear glass was fixed, which must have made it a miserable place to ride in the summer. Studebaker apparently realized this and offered as an accessory the Venetian shades pictured above, which would be the forerunner of the rear and side louvers that would become ubiquitous in the 1970s and ’80s.
Sun visors were another very popular way to shade the interior of the car. They peaked in popularity in the 1940s and 1950s, and can still be frequently seen on period cars at car shows.
Love the big grin on the guy smoking the cigar. When I was small, my family of four was given a ride with Uncle George and Aunt Margaret in their 1964 Bonneville for a jaunt into the mountains. As the smallest, I sat in the middle of the front seat next to cigar-chomping Uncle George, who had very much the same look on his face as the guy in the Fisher No-Draft ad. However, the little vent window in the Pontiac didn’t clear all the cigar smoke exactly as advertised…. I’m sure it was better than nothing!
Thanks for the fun article!
Great article — I love these old ways of attempting to stay cool, both the ones that seemed to be effective and the ones that are just plain amusing now.
The ’47 Chevy that I wrote about earlier this month contained two of the examples you featured here – a sun visor and a rubber-bladed fan (both shown in the pictures below). When writing up the car, I was rather intrigued by the fan, and had thought about including a period fan ad in the writeup, but the article got so long that I dropped the idea. So I’m glad we’ve given some attention to these fans here.
One additional cooling feature I suppose would be sunroofs. I recall that early sunroofs were sometimes advertised for their cooling abilities, although when I’ve owned sunroof-equipped cars, I always found that an open sunroof made the car hotter, except when the car’s in constant motion.
I figured the fan blades would have been made of metal as safety related laws weren’t on the books yet.
Someone in my neighbourhood has an SUV/off roading vehicle of some kind, and it appears to have an evaporative cooler attached to or above the passenger window. Quite a rare sight. I’d like to get a pic of it, sometime when I pass by.
I would say that automotive air conditioning became more ubiquitous in the 1980s, when it was available as an option on less than higher priced cars like Olds and Caddys.
I recall my Dad’s cars having the vent window in the front of the side window glass that we would open for fresh air ventilation.
Auto A/C first hit the 50% mark in the U.S. in 1969. By 1980 practically every car had it.
Swamp coolers depend on a high volume of air running across the pads and in very dry climates they work well. I have them in my home and rental house and get a 25°F temp drop except for the two or three evenings a year when the humidity exceeds 30%. I can see them working well at highway speeds in a car driving though the desert although they would be a lot bulkier than an A/C’s relatively compact compressor/evaporator/condenser.
The latest residential swamp cooler I bought is made in Australia. Much of that country has ideal conditions for them and they make good ones.
Buick with a swamp cooler.
And most likely the kitchen sink, too.
If you can recall a time when AC was not prevalent in cars than you can also recall a time of front quarter windows and kick panel vents. As much as I like AC I miss the feeling of outside air being directed over my legs at 70mph. However I dont miss the whistling of a quarter window w bad rubber seals makes when closed or the rumbling it would make from wind buffering when fully open.
Very good reading! The Scott Aire system is intriguing. How do you stay below the dew point temp and not fill your interior with a damp cloud? No consideration for latent cooling control. Yikes!
Yeah, that system seems odd to me, because the humidity would keep building up if the air is recirculating. Home evaporative coolers depend on drawing hot, dry outside air in, cooling it through evaporation, and blowing large volumes of air into the house, exhausting through slightly open windows–open just enough that an door opened a bit will close gently by itself.
Older cars were a least designed to move outside air through the car. With the rise of built in a/c there is little air flow available when the a/c breaks down. My ’56 Cadillac had the trunk based system which didn’t work when I got it. It did have four big windows that opened all the way, door vent windows, and a huge cowl air intake, the under dash vent doors were at least three feet across. I find that cars and especially trucks,with wider roofs also shade the driver and passenger. I had a little Pontiac Astre, (Vega clone) that had a roof the size of a card table. No a/c or opening rear windows, awful in the Summer.
Something we forget is that prior to the 1960’s most people did not go out in public scantily dressed. Men wore trousers and collared shirts with actual leather shoes. Ladies wore light dresses or skirts and blouses with sandals, lucky them. Standards of the Day meant that many men had to dress in suits and ties no matter how hot the weather. Somehow they survived.
Something we forget is that prior to the 1960’s most people did not go out in public scantily dressed. Men wore trousers and collared shirts with actual leather shoes.
Unless men were going to work or church or some formal event, you’re rather grossly overstating that. Men wore short sleeve shirts in the summer, and loose lightweight pants, and shorts were not exactly uncommon either.
Casual clothing became quite common after WW2.
My father was born in 1920. He was of the generation that wore blue jeans or trousers. Don’t ever remember seeing him in shorts.
We’d pile 7 kids and my parents into a ‘64 Impala wagon sans A/C. Wasn’t till 1974 that my parents got their first car with A/C and automatic. This was the result of my brother buying a new Ford truck with A/C in late ‘72. Mom was irritated, Dad initially hesitated, but eventually got the message.
What I remember of the days before ubiquitous A/C is that here in southern Arizona cars were hellishly hot in the summer, period. We always drove with at least two windows open, and had cool cushions on the seats–linked metal coils covered in an open mesh fabric. Even on the highway, we needed the windows open, so the combination of wind, engine, and road noise was awful.
Weirdly, when I was growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, I didn’t see a lot of adult men wearing shorts in the summer. That started to change in the late ’60s.
I rejoiced when I finally got a car in 1978 with factory air, a ’70 Ford Torino Brougham. It cooled very well and the engine never overheated. Bliss!
I remember a few (young) women wearing shorts in Indiana in the 1950’s but older women and most men and older boys – no. I’m hard pressed to think of any of my uncles wearing shorts in even the hottest weather and I don’t think my Dad ever owned a pair, then or later. Short sleeve shirts, casual slacks, and the occasional wife beater when working outside – yes. Pretty much only greasers wore T-shirts in public. All forms of dress began to change rapidly in the 1960’s.
My Tucson relatives came back to visit us in the summer of 57 in a new white Olds 88 with factory A/C. The family hovered around that car in amazement. We probably got the wrong impression that most people in southern Arizona had cars with A/C at that time as these folks were far from wealthy – just solidly middle class.
The opening windshield actually pre-dated closed cars, with many a touring car featuring a 2 piece window where at least one pane angle could be adjusted. On the Ford Model A there was a setting that would catch air and duct it under the dash. It was an early version of the cowl vent.
Cars since the 70s have made a/c virtually mandatory by eliminating cowl vents and vent windows. Any fresh air you get now is cooked by the heater core before it gets to you, making it less than useless.
And vent windows lead to a gripe of mine – people want to jam them all the way out to force air into the car, but that’s the job of the cowl vents. The vent windows are to let air out. I sure missed them when I got cars without back in my smoking days.
“Any fresh air you get now is cooked by the heater core before it gets to you, making it less than useless.”
Yup.
I recall putting many a GM car in the VENT setting in the ’70s and ’80s and getting nothing but heat soak from the core.
VENT was essentially the HEAT setting without modulation.
An interview with Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew…
Question: Anything else besides multicultural tolerance that enabled Singapore’s success?
Answer: Air conditioning. Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics.
The same thing can be said for the history of Florida. Prior to home AC being widely available post WWII, Florida had a population of around 1.5 million, around half of the then population of the state of Iowa. With AC? Florida’s population increased over 1000% to around 22 million, and Iowa has held steady around 3 million.
Very keen observation from a very astute man, Mr. Lee.
Without A/C, the American south is miserable to live in. That’s why the vast majority of the wealth generated by the United states for about three generations, between the Civil War and WWII, came from the northern states–today’s rust belt. That’s why Americans, black and white, left the south to work in factories in general, and auto factories in particular in the 1920s. That real wealth enabled the rest of the US to be the arsenal of development, and the south to be developed after WWII
Without cheap, reliable electricity, you can’t have A/C.
My father was born in the 1930s. Except for lounging at home, or casual visits or picnics, I don’t remember him going out in shorts, or in a t-shirt–or jeans for that matter (ties were for church and work in winter and weddings/baptisms/special occasion). Khaki pants and short sleeve shirts, with our without buttons, but with a collar.
And in the summer, we just rolled the windows down–and, as kids, my brother and I sometimes sat on towels, as our vinyl Ford Fairmont seats would burn us in shorts (worse than our VW Beetle had been…) We had NO roll down windows in the back until we were older, and we did not have A/C until we got our own cars…
The barracks buildings at my first USAF assignment, a radar site just west of Bartlesville, OK, had massive swamp-cooler units on their ground floors. As long as the air outside was not too humid they worked very well, but my one summer there was “unusually” humid, or so I was told. So instead of cooler air at night we had a warm, sticky fug that left our linoleum-tile floors misted over every morning. My discomfort was answered a few months later, when the site was being shut down and I was sent to Alaska!
I’m also reminded by this article that a small electric fan with rubber blades, mounted by screw-clamp to the steering column, was an item my dad transferred to each of several cars he bought in succession. All old Fords, except for one (also old) Dodge pickup and one fatally flawed ’40s Pontiac. Its primary job, however, was keeping the windshield clear, as built-in defrosters were either lacking or inadequate. For cooling we were stuck with open windows; on summer evenings Dad would suggest a ride by proposing we go out and “get the pew blown off of us.”
Whenever I see one of those dash mounted fans, I think of one of the final scenes in the movie Duel, where a shot is taken inside the crashed cab of the truck and the fan is still working with the blade hitting the guard..
Tink Tink ta Tink Tink Tink…..
I love the Trico one pictured in this post.
Thanks Tom for another chill installment in your series!
My 1965 Riviera was built on the edge of time where AC was about to explode in terms of take rate.
Given that, it featured door vent windows, kick panel vents and four fully retractable windows as standard equipment.
Equipped as it was with optional power windows and AC, it was just two power vent windows short of all things possible that year for cold comfort in Riviera style.
With the kick vents open, the rear power windows cracked a bit and maybe the driver’s door vent open a bit, an impressive amount of fresh air circulated through the car with minimal disturbance to the bouffant hair styles of the day.
When that wasn’t enough, this baby under the hood could keep Covid vaccine in fine condition….
(What was it with GM, Harrison and Frigidaire anyway? Chevy seemed to get Harrison, Buick Frigidaire – only Tom can sort it out.)
Great article! All those accessories, features and devices are largely forgotten now that air conditioning is ubiquitous. The vent windows open front and rear on my ’53 Packard Clipper Deluxe sedan do a wonderful job of ventilating the interior if its too cool or windy to have the windows cranked down. The vacuum windshield wipers, on the other hand, are nothing to get caught in a downpour with. My father’s ’53 Ford panel truck had one of those rubber-bladed dash fans. Although rubber, those blades hurt like hell if you stuck a finger into them as they whirled.
One addition ‘cooling’ options that Studebaker offered around 1950 were side window awnings! Made of wire and stripped canvas, they attached to the window opening, allowing the windows to be lowered for the breeze but keeping the sun out. No warning were issued about the speed they would withstand…
The last car sold in the US with an opening windshield had to be the “Split Window” VW bus. The completely fold down Jeep (and similar vehicles) one does not count. It wont fold with a roof installed. Those VW’s also had an overhead fresh air vent.
My 66 Sport Fury had A/C, vent windows, AND kick panel vents!! 🙂
Trucks seem to be a little better about driving without A/C for one the sliding rear window does a good job of letting hot air out, although I prefer the flip out quarter windows in my extended cab since they are easier to reach and quieter. The other thing is they appear to stil be designed to drive with the windows open. Above 20mph in most of our cars I experience a lot of noise and buffeting with open windows but my truck is fine until about 50mph so I drive it a lot more with the windows open.
Relating to vents, I think the last mass produced vehicle with cowl vents was the 2006 Landrover Defender since that was the last year with the original dash. The 2007 and later ones had a new interior and the cowl vent flaps were closed off.
My grandmother bought a big pot or tub that sat on the floor of her cars and as she did her traveling saleswoman route in the late 20’s to about 1942, she would buy a block of ice at the local ice house along the way. There was a hose coming out the side near the bottom that went into a hole in the floor to eliminate any water splashing around. She had a couple of fans blowing on it, and my mother said it wasn’t bad, except it did restrict use of the right side seat. When A/C became available in a car she could afford, she traded in her nearly new car to get it. She only drove Mopars so I don’t know what year it was.
Living in Ontario air conditioning was not as necessary as in warmer climates. In 1973 I had the opportunity to visit India with a friend who was going to visit his family. We went in May, which is the hottest time of the year. In Delhi it was in the mid 40s Celsius. My friend’s family was quite well off, but only one of their cars had air conditioning (early 60s Ford Fairlane). Most of the time we drove in Hindustan Ambassadors. What I found odd was that no one ever opened a window, so I tried it one day. It was like having a hair dryer blowing in your face. No more open windows! Because electricity was rationed, they could not run the air conditioning in the house all the time. It was a very warm trip.
By 1980 air conditioning was available in the Ambassador. Later they auto market was opened up to foreign companies and there was more choice. In ‘73 you could not import a car. The embassies and consulates could bring in cars, and when they were finished with them they were auctioned by the government. As I remember my friends uncle said he paid about USD 10,000 for the Fairlane. Quite a mark-up.