You get in the car and it’s very hot, but nothing happens, in a matter of seconds, the air conditioner It does its job and cools the interior so you drive at the temperature you decide.
Well, it hasn’t always been like this: decades ago cars couldn’t have air-conditioningbut in the 1930s someone had an idea to “air-condition” the interior of cars.
It wasn’t ideal from an aesthetic point of view, but it worked
Nowadays, even the hottest summer can be endured perfectly inside a car. Even the cheapest model on the market has air conditioning as standard, although the most common thing is that they already have automatic climate controlusually with two zones, but there are those with four zones (and more). As if that were not enough, some cars also come with ventilated seats.
We take it for granted that air conditioning is as essential as ABS, ESP or airbags. And the truth is that this is the case, perhaps not in Norway, but in countries like Spain, where the heat It can be very intense a good part of the year.
Therefore, it is not even something we think about when we are going to buy a new car, but There was a time when air conditioning did not exist in cars. and you had to drive in the same heat as it is now, so someone thought of inventing something that would allow the inside of the car to be relatively cool.
Willis Carrier invented air conditioning in 1902, but we had to wait until 1939 to see the first air-conditioned car. It was a Packard and offered this system optionally; In the 1940s, several brands offered air conditioning, but always with an extra and, of course, it was not cheap.
The cheap alternative to combat the heat inside the car was an invention that was popularly known as “car cooler” or “swamp cooler”. Simply put, it was a device that kept the interior of the vehicle relatively cool through cooling by evaporation of water, that is, it was an evaporative cooler.
This device was mounted on the car door frame, just above the front passenger window (or a rear window), which was left partially down to introduce an air vent into the interior of the vehicle.
The device had a water tank with a filter inside and a large air inlet through which hot air from outside passed; This air evaporated the water from the tank and passed humid and, therefore, cooler, inside through the channeling of the passenger window.
Companies such as Thermidor, Western Auto, Firestone or JC Whitney sold this device, mainly in the United States. The cheapest ones depended on the car moving so that the air evaporated the water and entered the interior of the car, but there were some that had an electric fan that moved the air even when the vehicle was stationary.
Normally, the water tank had enough capacity to cool the car for two or three hours. After that time, it had to be filled again. Logically, the colder the water with which the tank was filled, the colder the air entered the car.
The system became very popular in certain areas of the United States and there were even companies that rented it because it could be removed and installed in a matter of seconds. It didn’t take up much space either, so it could be carried in the trunk and used when the heat was on.
In the 1960s, air conditioning in cars became popular in the United States and the “car cooler” fell out of use. The air conditioning was more effective and did not “break” the aesthetics of the vehicle.
Currently, some enthusiasts continue to attach this system to their classic carsbut more for aesthetics than functionality, in fact, it is easy to find “swamp coolers” for sale Completely restored, although they are not cheap.
Image: Doug Coldwell via Wikimedia Commons
Source: www.motorpasion.com
