1959 Ford Fairlane 500 Galaxie with Select-Aire / Barn Finds
Once upon a time, factory air conditioning was one of the most (if not THE most) expensive automotive options you could buy — rarely seen at all, and then mostly on high-end American cars like Cadillac or Lincoln. During the 1960s, however, the popularity of air conditioning really took off on U.S. cars — particularly on low-price full-size cars. Let’s take a look at how many big Chevrolets, Fords, and Plymouths had factory air conditioning during this period. Some of the results might surprise you.
Only 2.3 percent of 1959 Plymouths had air conditioning, most of them probably top-of-the-line models like this Sport Fury hardtop / RK Motors
As with my earlier posts on manual transmission installation rates and stripped-down full-size Chevrolets, this data comes from the annual statistical issues of Chilton’s trade journal Automotive Industries, which surveyed U.S. automakers to compile installation rates for different optional equipment. It includes only full-size models (except the 1959–1963 Chevrolet totals, which include the Corvette, but not the Corvair or Chevy II), not each brand as a whole.
Airtemp air conditioning controls were by pushbuttons on 1959 Plymouths / RK Motors
Factory Air Conditioning Installation Rates, Full-Size Low-Price Makes vs. Domestic Average, 1959–1961
In the 1959–1961 period, air conditioning installation rates were low overall (6.2 percent for 1959, rising to 6.9 percent for 1960 and 8.1 percent for 1961) — SO low that you’ll notice that I cut off the Y-axis as 50 percent to make the individual bars more visible. Not many buyers were willing or able to afford the $400+ price of factory air conditioning, especially on a low-price make where the option would have added 15 percent or more to the total cost of the car. Thus, the A/C installation rates for the “Low-Price Three” lagged a good bit behind the industry average.
1959 Ford Fairlane 500 Galaxie Club Sedan with air conditioning / Barn Finds
The main surprise is that Ford buyers were more likely to order air than were buyers of full-size Chevrolet or Plymouth models; this was generally true of other options like radio and power steering as well. Although Ford had struck out hard with its attempts to expand its mid-price brands (Edsel was gone midway through 1960 and Mercury was on life support), they were doing quite well at getting customers to pay a little more for a Ford.
Factory Air Conditioning Installation Rates, Full-Size Low-Price Makes vs. Domestic Average, 1962–1964
In the 1962–1964 period, you’ll notice something interesting: Through 1963, the air conditioning take rate for full-size Chevrolets lagged behind the overall industry average, but starting in 1964, it leaped ahead, reaching 17.7 percent, compared to an overall domestic average of 17.1 percent.
1964 Chevrolet Impala SS Sport Coupe with factory air conditioning / Mecum Auctions
As I noted in my earlier post about stripped-down full-size Chevrolets, I think this shift was probably related to the introduction of the midsize Chevelle/Malibu line pushing the bigger cars upmarket, but the jump was even more dramatic than I thought. Full-size Chevy sales were down a bit for 1964 (by about 19,000 units), but Chevrolet sold about 80,000 more air-conditioned big cars than in 1963.
This 1964 Chevrolet Impala SS Sport Coupe has the Four Season integrated air conditioning system / Mecum Auctions
On a percentage basis, Plymouth air conditioning sales were up even more sharply for 1964, although because Plymouth buyers had been less likely to order air before that, Plymouth installation rates still lagged behind Ford and Chevrolet, and well below the industry average. Also, sales of bigger Plymouth models were still weak during this period.
1964 Plymouth Fury wagon with 383 cu. in. (6,275 cc) engine, four-speed, and air conditioning / Bring a Trailer
Total Plymouth production (excluding the Valiant) was 244,395 in 1963 and 274,689 in 1964, meaning Chevrolet sold more full-size cars with A/C than Plymouth sold bigger cars.
Air-Temp controls in a 1964 Plymouth Fury / Bring a Trailer
From this point on, the A/C installation rates were high enough that I’ve extended the Y-axis of the charts back to 100 percent, so bear that in mind when comparing the charts.
Factory Air Conditioning Installation Rates, Full-Size Low-Price Makes vs. Domestic Average, 1965–1967
The big surprise in the 1965–1967 period is that the air conditioning installation rate for big Plymouths, which had previously been significantly lower than full-size Chevrolets or Fords, suddenly jumped ahead for 1966, going from 20.4 to 32.1 percent in just one year.
1966 Plymouth Sport Fury with air conditioning / ClassicCars.com
Full-size Plymouth sales were fairly consistent in this period, but about 31,500 more of those cars were sold with air conditioning in 1966 than in the previous year. For 1967, the Plymouth A/C installation rate climbed to 45.2 percent, a figure more comparable to midprice brands like Pontiac (46.6 percent) or Mercury (50.0 percent).
1966 Ford Galaxie 500 LTD with factory air conditioning / Vicari Auction
Some of the growth in factory air conditioning installations was undoubtedly due to the introduction of the LTD, Caprice, and VIP. The installation data for these years isn’t broken out by series, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to surmise that the buyers of these mass-market luxury cars were more likely to order air. However, even that doesn’t fully explain the upswing at Plymouth. (The VIP wasn’t a big seller, selling around 18,000 units in 1966 and about 18,500 for 1967, and even if every one of those cars had air, it wouldn’t be enough to account for the increase in A/C sales.)
Factory Air Conditioning Installation Rates, Full-Size Low-Price Makes vs. Domestic Average, 1968–1969
The A/C installation figures for 1968 and 1969 come with an asterisk: For 1968, Ford (and only Ford) broke out its full-size model optional equipment installation rates by trim series, lumped together as Custom (which I assume included Custom and Custom 500), Galaxie (probably including both the Galaxie 500 and Galaxie 500/XL), and LTD. I came up with a weighted average for the chart above, but this is a very tenuous estimate because it’s not clear which production figures were used for the denominator.
Selectaire cost $368.72 on this 1968 Ford LTD Country Squire / Bring a Trailer
Here’s what the series breakdown looks like:
Factory Air Conditioning Installation Rates, Full-Size Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth vs. Domestic Average, 1968
It’s too bad that this kind of breakout isn’t available for each of the three brands, but that’s the way the data was published. (For 1970–1971, full-size Plymouth installation rates were broken out by series, but Ford and Chevrolet were not.)
This 1968 Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon with factory air conditioning was a $4,823.32 car / Bring a Trailer
However, it seems likely that 1968–1969 trim series breakouts for the full-size Chevrolet and full-size Plymouths would show a similar pattern, with A/C more common in the Caprice and VIP than in the Biscayne or Fury I. While the pricier models still didn’t predominate in total sales volume, they undoubtedly pushed upwards the overall installation rates of extra-cost options like air conditioning.
Comparing the beginning and end of the decade, it’s obvious that the overall popularity of air conditioning on U.S. cars had increased dramatically. This was largely a function of economics: Although automotive air conditioning was still expensive, it was a bit more affordable in 1969 than it had been 10 years earlier, both on an inflation-adjusted basis and as a percentage of vehicle base price. More significantly, median family income in the U.S. had increased from $5,400 to $9,400 per year between 1959 and 1969. Calculating how much real gain that increase represented in purchasing power is more complicated (MeasuringWorth offers several estimates of how much the 1959 figure represented in 1969 dollars), but overall, Americans in the late ’60s had substantially more money to spend than U.S. households of previous decades.
1969 Chevrolet Caprice Sport Sedan / Bring a Trailer
The United States Census Bureau put it like this back in 1970:
The increase in family income for 1969 is a continuation of the general trend in rising family income during the past 22 years. Between 1947 and 1969, median family income in current dollars has tripled, rising from about $3,000 to $9,400. Although some of this increase was eroded by rising prices, the rise in real purchasing power is still substantial. In terms of constant (1969) dollars, median money income increased from about $5,000 in 1947 to $9,400 in 1969, about $200 annually, or a compounded annual rate of increase of about 3 percent over the period.
The general rise in family income was accompanied by an upward shift in the income distribution. This shift can be illustrated by the decline in the percent of families with incomes below $4,000 (constant 1969 dollars) between 1947 and 1969. In 1969, 15 percent of all families had incomes below $4,000 compared with 37 percent of all families in 1947.
This was graphically illustrated by the accompanying income distribution chart:
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Report P60-75, December 14, 1970
That trend helps to explain the upswing in the overall installation rate for automotive air conditioning, which increased by about 9 to 1 over the course of the decade, but it also underscores the changing role of the low-priced domestic full-size car. Air conditioning take rates for this class surpassed the industry average in 1967, and that trend continued into the 1970s.
This 1969 Chevrolet Caprice has Comfortron automatic climate control / Bring a Trailer
| Brand | 1959 Model Year | 1969 Model Year |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Domestic Industry Average | 6.2 percent | 54.0 percent |
| Chevrolet, full-size | 2.3 percent | 62.1 percent |
| Ford, full-size | 4.0 percent | 64.3 percent |
| Plymouth, full-size | 2.3 percent | 67.1 percent |
What I take from this, as I’ve said before, is that by the end of the ’60s, more and more buyers regarded the full-size Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth not as low-buck basic transportation (a role that was increasingly being assumed by compacts, intermediates, and imported small cars), but as a less-expensive alternative to full-size mid-price cars, for people who didn’t care about or didn’t want the added prestige of more upscale brands.
1970 Ford LTD four-door hardtop / Orlando Classic Cars
In the short term, the latter still had lots of momentum, including strong dealer networks and considerable brand loyalty, but I think the data in this post is more evidence that the writing was already on the wall for their eventual decline in the 1980s.
Like most full-size domestic cars of 1970, this LTD hardtop has air conditioning / Orlando Classic Cars
Keep in mind that the above data is only for the United States: I don’t currently have this kind of data for Canada. However, Statistique Canada (CS13-542, Table 4) indicates that the median income of Canadian individuals and families in 1969 was only $6,801 CAD, equivalent to $6,316 USD at the time — about two-thirds of the median U.S. income in 1969. Since Canadian households had less income, it stands to reason that the installation rates of expensive options like air conditioning remained significantly lower than in the U.S. So, if any Canadian readers recall air conditioning still being very rare on low-priced big cars in the late ’60s and early ’70s, you’re probably right! This was another of the various differences between the U.S. and Canadian markets.
Related Reading
Automotive History: How Common Were Stripped-Down Full-Size Chevrolets In The 1960s? (by me)
Cold Comfort: History of Automotive Air Conditioning, Part 1 – Pre-World War II (by Tom Halter)
Cold Comfort: History of Automotive Air Conditioning, Part 2 – The Aftermarket (by Tom Halter)
Cold Comfort: History of Automotive Air Conditioning, Part 3 – Post-World War II (by Tom Halter)
Cold Comfort: World’s Most Optioned 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air (by Tom Halter)
Cold Comfort: How People Kept Cool in Cars Before Air Conditioning (by Tom Halter)
Cold Comfort: The History of Automatic Climate Control (by Tom Halter)
My Dad’s first car with A/C was a 1974 Mercury Comet. However, the incentive for the A/C was my brother buying a 1972 Ford F-150 with A/C when he starting working full time. Living in the Deep South, Mom got a little irritated and pressed my money pinching Dad to ditch the ’64 Impala wagon for the Comet.
My first car with A/C was a used ’75 Toyota Corolla. It could barely keep up with a black vinyl interior. The best A/C was on my ’97 Camry. By this time, Toyota had found the sweet spot on climate control.
Lots of good data here that does a terrific job of explaining what did happen. I think that there is a whole additional story to tell from the sociological (and a bit from the economic) angle about why this happened.
I’ve told the story before about how my family’s first car with air conditioning – a 1971 Chrysler – was something that my folks (particularly my mom) never stopped complaining about so far as how “having” to take a car with the “optional” air conditioning was such a massive injustice. And yes, my folks would be in their 80s now if they were still around, but I routinely encounter people in their 80s (or older) who during the summer are willing to swelter indoors and outdoors rather than turn on the air conditioning. It’s not that they’re not hot, but that there’s just something I think that many folks of that age have…having grown up in a time before air conditioning was omnipresent…where being uncomfortable is an expected condition at some times. The idea that one could spend money to alleviate that discomfort just doesn’t occur to some folks, and is frankly a bit immoral to others. I think I’ve met quite a few who fall into that latter category.
Call it what you will, but I think that people needed to be taught to use and value air conditioning. Like so many “conveniences” we have in modern society.
My mom’s first (and only) car with AC was her last car, the 1986 Volvo wagon. By then AC was standard. But she almost never used it. She did like the heated seats and loved the central locking (I think it still had crank windows, and definitely a clutch pedal). She was 59 when she bought it. “Who needs air conditioning? I can just open the windows.”
Aaron, another exhaustive, excellent piece. Your theories make perfect sense. After 1960 cheapskates who would never go for A/C were drawn to cheap compacts and intermediates, leaving the full size buyer more amenable to this option. A/C cost was relatively lower as well. In the fifties A/C was at least a $400 option, often 20% of the price of the entire car. By 1969 A/C was generally less than $400 in inflated dollars, less than 10% of the cost of the car. And, A/C worked very well and once people experienced a cool, quiet, comfortable car in 90 degree weather they were hooked.
Our family was typical. First air conditioned car was a 1969 Ford LTD. A thrifty uncle, who cared little about cars, still wanted to be cool. He traded his 1962 Rambler for a 1967 Chevy Bel Air, its only options being Powerglide, power steering, tinted windshield and A/C. Blackwalls, hub caps and no radio. I was shocked it had the 327 and he explained that you need a bigger engine to drive the A/C compressor. Hee hee.
It would be interesting to include the AMC Ambassador in these figures. It was considered a low priced full sized car in the 1960s but not many were sold as compared to the Big 3. In 1968, AMC made air conditioning standard on the Ambassador.
Are there any new vehicles of which A/C is still an option? It used to be that way on the previous gen Wrangler, but I think it’s now standard equipment across the board on all new vehicles sold in the US. Maybe A/C can be deleted on the Wrangler but only as a special order on the most base fleet models.
Many bemoan the recent sharp increases in MSRP over the last several years, but the flip-side is stuff like A/C, power windows, and power steering are all standard equipment now on even the cheapest new cars.
I was wondering the same thing.
That 1968 Country Squire, if it had navy-blue paint, would be a twin of my Mom’s car. It replaced a 1961 Chevy wagon, and was the first car Dad ordered with A/C. I recall he ordered the 390 because A/C sapped a lot of power (I doubt it would have mattered much). Also significant, it had a positraction differential, which coupled with studded snow tires made it a great snow car… I took a lot of Vermont ski trips with it in high school.
Dad was so pleased with the A/C that he quickly ordered a 1968 Pontiac Ventura with it.
I think Plymouth wisely concocted a formula for comparison shoppers:
“For the price of an Impala we can put you in a Plymouth with A/C”
That would make sense. By the same token, I assume a lot of buyers of full-size Ford, Chevrolets, and Plymouths by the end of the decade had recognized that they could get an LTD or Impala with A/C for less money than a full-size mid-price make without air.
My aunt/uncles “65 Lemans”, was the first “factory air” car I remember. Our first “a/c” ride had the (by then) dated “hang on the dash”, set up.
Aaron, great job on figures and they are not Hollywood actresses! I entered the world of A/C with my 1968 International Travell. I had gotten my license to drive in 1966 just shy of my 23rd birthday. By 1968, I WANTED A/C. However, similar to Jeff’s parents, in the summer I use the A/C when traveling with the wife and other passengers whereas when I am by myself I prefer to hit the power window switches, open the sun (moon) roof and enjoy the weather. I had a friend who when he went on vacation with his wife to a summer place (stop humming!), she drove in her car with the A/C turned up, and he drove his well-equipped pickup with the windows down, and smoking his cigar. Were he alive today, he would also be in his eighties. So, in Jeff’s target group for open windows in the summer.
As a personal story, my favorite aunt and uncle traded their new, nice ’65 Sport Fury for a new ’66 Sport Fury solely because the ’66 had air conditioning. They had recently moved into a new house with central AC, which was still a bit of a novelty — only the newest houses had central AC — and it was a revelation to them. They decided they weren’t going to suffer in the summer heat every time they took a drive somewhere.
My memory is that while window ACs were fairly common at the time — that’s what my family had — they were by no means universal.
So in addition to rising incomes, there may have been something of a snowball effect: The more homes that were air conditioned, the more intolerable an unconditioned car seemed.
Lemme try another angle… Interstate highways. Just as with the fading popularity of the convertible, A/C take rates possibly went up along with speed limits.
Tooling along Route 66 at ~50mph with all the windows down sounds like fun. 75mph on I-10 with all the windows (and/or convertible top) down sounds a whole lot less fun.
The first car I remember with A/C was my grandfather’s 1972 Dart. But that was on the east coast. In the Bay Area I don’t remember A/C till much later and A/C didn’t become a permanent fixture in my COAL’s until 1995.
Growing up in the 1950’s, my parents always drove Chevrolets-almost always four door models with the six cylinder engine and little else. Our house did not have air conditioning, we used an exhaust window fan to cool the house. I think it was about 1963 before they spurged on a window a/c unit. At the time I don’t think any of our friends and neighbors had a/c in their houses or cars. In the mid-sixties air conditioning in cars was becoming more common; in 1966 my parents bought a 1966 Pontiac with a/c; after that all their cars had air conditioning.
My family’s first air conditioned car was our 1967 Dodge Dart. My parents went through the book with the dealer and choose exactly what they wanted built. We waited many weeks for it to arrive. When it did, the window sticker had a line at the bottom “expedite this car has been sold.”
In keeping with my father’s thrifty (but never cheap) nature, the car was a real dog. It had the straight six engine, delete trim, delete carpet (got a rubber mat floor), stock AM only radio, hubcaps only–no wheel covers, and all vinyl seats. Everything cosmetic was left off that car, but it did have the wonderful factory air, and power steering.
My father kept every car for 15-20 years. He never traded any in. When he was ready to get rid of it, he offered it to me. I took most family cast offs I was offered. But I didn’t want THAT one. It ultimately went to a domestic employee of our family, who was delighted to get such a well maintained free car, even though it was old.
When the `62 models went on sale. my grandfather bought a used `59 Chevy Biscayne 2 door post coupe. It was a police detective`s car from the Tampa Bay area in Florida, hence the air conditioning which was an in-dash unit and probably a very rare option for it`s time. It was white with the V8 and had a light blue interior and Powerglide. My grandfather (who was a retired NYPD detective) loved the car,but my grandmother hated the air, especially when he was smoking his pipe or cigars.A few years later he bought a used `60 Dodge Phoenix 4 door hardtop sedan also with air,Cool cars, I wish they were still in my family.
Are you going to do smaller cars next? My parents’ firs air conditioned car was a 64 Valiant and from then on the big car always had AC but the second car didn’t have AC from 1972 to 1986.
Family and friends with full sized cars definitely had air conditioning by the early 70s which is as far back as I recall. Of course we were middle class so the cheapest 1960s era US full size cars I encountered were an AMC Ambassador and a Ford Country Squire.
This is a great analysis of an emergent trend revealing changing customer attitudes and purchasing patterns in the rising widespread prosperity in the 1960’s America. Well-done Aaron and much appreciated.
The corollary to the rise of air conditioning take rates is the plummeting convertible sales in the same period which accelerated dramatically after 1965.
Let us not forget American Motors made air conditioning standard equipment on Ambassador for 1968 to take advantage of consumer preference for this convenience.
This actually doesn’t appear to be strongly correlated. U.S. convertible sales had been very low since the late 1930s. In the early ’50s, they hovered below 3 percent market share and then rose a bit to 4.6 percent in the late ’50s. Convertible sales then increased modestly in the early ’60s, peaking in 1963, before falling off again. There was not a dramatic drop-off until 1969–1970, when their market share plunged below 2 percent for the first time. This is really grist for another post, but the conventional wisdom that the popularity of air conditioning killed convertibles isn’t really borne out by the data.
I’m (thankfully) just a bit too young to speak to the Canadian market in the 60s. Personally, I remember my dad specifically booking a rental with air conditioning for the trip from Toronto to Boston in 1976. The memories of the 1972 trip in a Ford Galaxie 500, in the heat and humidity of the New England summer, must have been fresh in his mind. The rental turned out to be a Ford Granada, which impressed dad so much he bought a Monarch the following year – with air conditioning. Except for the 1982 Honda Accord, every car he bought after that had a/c.
More generally, a couple of other reasons for a slower take rate in Canada, beyond the climate: there used to be an excise tax on the cars with a/c, which, by memory, was $550 (I don’t know why I remember things like that). In the 70’s that meant a/c came at an even more hefty premium. The lower incomes also meant Canadians have long tended to buy smaller cars, which would have struggled with the power demand.
Yikes! Yes, a $550 CAD excise tax would seem to have a pretty significant deterrent effect on sales.
Like Aaron started, air conditioned cars were a rarity in Canada in this era. My dad’s first car with a/c was his 1979 Impala. The car cost C$8200 at the time and the a/c was $800. On top of this was an a/c tax of $100. Fast forward half a century and that a/c tax is still with us, when practically all cars have air conditioning.