Two weeks ago we loaded up the Town and Country van and headed south to Kentucky to attend a family reunion and enjoy a weekend vacation. Our Chrysler is now ten years old and has spent most of its life in town, so we thought it was time for it to see the country. It has a lot of nice options for our traveling comfort, not the least of which is air conditioning. Believe me, we needed it. Air conditioning has become a necessity. For the last 30 years or so, it has become standard equipment on a car, any car. We simply can’t live without it.
Yet it doesn’t seem so long ago that automobile air conditioning was like something out of Star Trek. When I was growing up, my family went on some very nice vacations. We went to Canada, the Smokey Mountains, Minnesota, Washington D. C, and Miami, Florida where we had family and friends. The cars we traveled in were a 1957 Chevy Wagon, a Dodge Wagon, and a Buick Special. For several of those trips we didn’t have a car radio, let alone air conditioning. A lot of cars back then were not even set up to carry or power air conditioning There were garages that sold and installed A/C.
It did get hot — certainly as hot as it gets today. My Uncle Bob was a Buick Riviera man. The Rivieras were luxury cars and A/C was standard in them.
What was standard equipment in just about every American car were vented windows. Remember them? The roll-up windows of the front driver and passenger doors were divided, with the vented window at the front part of the door. They usually had a hand-operated lever to open them and they pointed inward to the front seat so that the wind would blow on your knees. They were shaped in a long capital D form or triangular and the faster you went, the more air was deflected on you. You could get a gale force wind to stir up and blow all your papers and maps all over the car interior. Still, the back of the car could get deathly hot and that’s where the kids seemed to ride,
When I got married, I drove a 1965 Buick Special. It was a nice car. It had a radio. We didn’t travel very far in it, but we put some miles on it. We bought a ‘73 Plymouth Sebring Satellite. It was a sharp car and it had air conditioning. However, after 4 years the A/C went out and we didn’t have it fixed because of the cost.
In 1980 we got a 1979 Chevy Nova. It was your basic car. It was by far the most dependable car we ever owned. It didn’t have A/C or radio. I had a radio installed but no A/C. We drove all over the place in that car: Boston twice. Florida, Virginia, Kentucky, St Louis, King’s Island, the World’s Fair. Like I said, all over the place. We had that car 11 years. No air conditioning. I must have gotten hot but I can’t remember.
We’ve had air conditioning in all our vehicles for the last 18 years. It’s now a necessity. I’m at the point now where I don’t seem to remember a lot of the discomfort of my youth. The auto A/C is like my PC. I didn’t know how much I needed it until I got it. I can’t remember what is was like not to have it. Like so many things, it’s gone from luxury to necessity.
P.S. The wife remembers we drove 3,000 miles in the Nova in two weeks with a 2 year old in tow during one of those east coast trips and it was 98 degrees in D.C. To make matters worse the umbrella stroller broke halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol and we had to carry that big 2 year old the rest of the day.