Key Takeaways
- In the late 1930s, Packard introduced the first air conditioning option for cars, but it was discontinued by 1941.
- Chrysler revolutionized car AC in 1954 with the Airtemp system, offering consistent cooling and filtering capabilities.
- Cadillac further developed automatic climate control in the 1960s, sparking innovation and making AC more accessible.
There’s nothing quite like jumping into an air-conditioned vehicle on a hot day. The sweat lining your forehead soon ceases to exist as you cool off and relax. These days, AC is standard fare on cars, new and used, but it wasn’t always like that. There was a time when opening the windows was the only way of accessing cooler air.
Fortunately, in the late 1930s, Packard began looking into car air conditioning. However, it wasn’t until the early 1950s that American car manufacturer Chrysler brought AC to the masses. With summer upon us, HotCars decided to look back some 70 years at the story behind how air conditioning became a key automotive technology we can’t live without.
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Packard Was First To Market With Air Conditioning In Cars
Automotive Air Conditioning Timeline
- 1939: The first air conditioning unit was offered as an option by Packard, but was ditched by 1941.
- 1954: AC makes a return with the vastly superior Chrysler Airtemp system, which could maintain a consistent interior temperature
- 1964: Cadillac brings the first climate control system to market.
- 1968: AMC becomes the first automaker to offer AC as standard, in the Ambassador.
- 1994: Long-used R-12 refrigerant is replaced by R-134a.
Keeping occupants cool is one of the most important aspects of vehicle comfort, and was a key selling point in the early days of motoring. There’s no point having plush seats and wood trim if the passengers desperately want to escape a broiling cabin, especially in the closed-cockpit cars that were the norm in the early 1900s.
Manufacturers therefore looked into finding ways to cool the air down inside their vehicles, rather than simply rolling down the windows or blowing slightly less hot ambient air through the vents. General Motors was the first to float the idea of an air conditioning device using vapor compression in the late 1920s, but it was Packard that brought the first system to market in 1939 with its One-Eighty model.
Although Packard was the first marque to take the idea and make it a reality, several problems limited its viability. For starters, the main evaporator and blower components had to be mounted in the trunk due to their large size, which reduced trunk space by half. This system also lacked a thermostat to maintain a temperature or turn off the system, meaning the only form of control the user had was to turn off the blower.
Cool air could still escape through the vents though, making it difficult to achieve or maintain a comfortable temperature. The system was also very complicated, with its significant level of plumbing proving unreliable in practice. This early Packard AC system was also ultra-expensive, and its price of $274 (around $6,000 in today’s money) put off many customers, especially considering America had just come through the Great Depression.
Given these challenges, Packard stopped offering its air conditioning system as an option just two years later, in 1941. It would be almost 15 years until Chrysler unveiled a widely available air conditioner in its Imperial.
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Chrysler Perfected A Commercially Viable Air Conditioning System
After over a decade in dormancy, car-based air conditioning returned, courtesy of Chrysler. Keen to craft an edge over its luxury car rivals with its top-of-the-line Imperial offering, the brand developed an AC system named Airtemp for the 1954 Chrysler Imperial. Like the Packard design from 15 years earlier, the blower and evaporators were located in the trunk of the car, while the compressor and condensers were under the hood.
According to Chrysler, the advanced system could not only cool the cabin down but also stabilize it at around 70 degrees. Airtemp could also condense excess moisture in the air and filter out dirty air containing pollen, dust, and cigarette smoke. The automaker also said its system could pump in 60% more fresh air than competing units at the time, all of which became the blueprint for future AC systems in cars.
One area that needed improvement, though, was packaging. Having the bulky blower and evaporator in the trunk was impractical for many owners, but the problem was soon solved thanks to Pontiac and Nash. These brands designed a more compact AC system that could be entirely installed in the engine bay. As well, this system combined cooling and heating components, taking automotive climate systems closer to what is used today.
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Cadillac Developed The Modern Automotive Climate Control System
Innovative Features Of Cadillac Comfort Control
- Sensors measuring internal and external temperature enabled automatic cabin temperature adjustment.
- Humidity could be measured and maintained to a comfortable level.
- The Comfort Control system was also used to reduce window fogging.
Air conditioning units in cars really started to capture the public imagination during the 1960s. With packaging no longer a problem, Cadillac took Chrysler’s system a step further by introducing a feature that today is known as automatic climate control.
Introduced with the 1964 model year, Cadillac’s Comfort Control made use of the heater and air conditioner to automatically adjust cabin temperatures as needed. Cars fitted with the system, like the striking Cadillac Series 62, had sensors for measuring the internal and external temperatures. The system could then automatically change the cabin temperature depending on how hot or cold it was outside.
Cadillac’s system proved to be a hit and was soon copied by its competitors over the following years. This competition, and the resulting research and development efforts, ultimately drove down the physical size of automotive air conditioners and made them more affordable in the process.
AMC took things a step further in 1968 when it became the first automaker to include air conditioning as standard equipment. The company’s full-size Ambassador sedan was the platform utilized for this effort, though most manufacturers started to include AC at no extra cost over the coming decades.
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Why Automakers Stopped Using R-12 Refrigerant In AC Systems
The general design of automotive AC systems today remains largely the same as those from the early 1960s, aside from the type of refrigerant used. Following extensive research into climate change during the 1980s, it was found the R-12 refrigerant used in early air conditioning systems was damaging the Earth’s ozone layer.
To combat the problem, R-12 was replaced with R-134a, which was easier on the environment. In 1994, R-134a became mandatory for all automotive AC units, and R-12 was banished to the pages of history.
The Current State Of Automotive Air Conditioning
According to Kelley Blue Book, every mainstream vehicle sold in the US today features AC as standard. Cars built purely for performance, such as the track-focused Ariel Atom, are the outliers that skip AC in the interest of weight savings. And this game-changing technology continues to evolve.
Now 70 years on from when automotive AC first arrived, companies like Volkswagen are still working to improve it with innovations like Smart Air Conditioning in its 2023 ID.7 EV that can heat and cool the car before you get in.
Sources: XR793.com, J.D.Power, Kelley Blue Book, Mecum Auctions, Gateway Classic Cars
