Regular readers of my Cold Comfort series of posts know that I am fascinated (obsessed, really) with automotive air conditioning. Well it is time to see how the other half lives and to start exploring the fascinating history of automotive heaters, starting with the fact that for a very long time (well into the 1960s) a heater was optional, and not standard equipment on most cars.
The earliest post-war American car I could find with a heater as standard equipment was the 1949 Chrysler Crown Imperial ($5,229), a big formal limousine. A heater was a $70 option for the rest of the Chrysler lineup that year, even on the cheaper Custom Imperial. Literally every other American carmaker required you to purchase a heater at an extra cost.
Surprisingly, the next automaker to follow Chrysler’s lead on making a heater standard equipment was Nash, whose 1950 Rambler compact was initially offered only in fancy Custom trim, with many standard features, including the Nash “Weather Eye” heater. (Later, Nash would offer the Rambler in cheaper Deluxe and Special trim without these features.)
More automakers followed in 1953, which turned out to be a (hot) watershed year for standard-equipment heaters, at least among luxury and specialty cars. That year, a few more manufacturers made a heater standard equipment on their new range-topping specialty models.
Oldsmobile made a heater standard equipment on the rare 1953 Fiesta while keeping it as a $79 option across the rest of the lineup. Buck similarly made a heater standard on only their 1953 Skylark model. Packard made a heater standard on their open-top Caribbean convertible, but still a $97 option across the remainder of the lineup. Kaiser made a heater standard equipment on their upmarket Dragon for 1953 as well.
Cadillac made dash and under-seat heaters on the pricey 1953 Eldorado, but a heater was still optional on other Cadillacs. The Cadillac heating system wouldn’t become standard on non-Eldorado models until 1962.
In 1955, Studebaker, sticking their toes in the hot water, released their first model with a standard heater, the President Speedster.
For 1956, the Continental Mark II would be the first FoMoCo product to come with a standard heater, with air conditioning being the only option on offer.
In 1957, the Turnpike Cruiser became the first Mercury to receive a heater as standard issue. Pontiac no longer forced buyers to opt for a heater on their new-for-1957 Bonneville — it was standard there as well. (It wouldn’t stay that way for long. For 1958, the heater was again a $96.30 option on all Pontiac models, including the Bonneville.)
Studebaker-Packard in 1957 took the unusual step of making a heater standard on their new Studebaker Scotsman. Added late in the 1957 model year, the Scotsman was a stripped-down version of the standard Studebaker Champion sedan with a rock-bottom price starting at $1776. This undercut the cheapest Chevrolet by over $100, which was all the more impressive because Studebaker was tossing in an important feature Chevy was charging up to $75 extra for.
And here we see the real reason it took so long for heaters to become standard equipment: Charging hefty prices (upwards of $100 on high-end models) for something that virtually everyone was going to buy anyway essentially amounted to a back-door surcharge, allowing manufacturers to advertise artificially lower list prices. Whoever caved first and made the heater standard was going to be at a base price disadvantage, as well as missing out on a revenue-generating opportunity.
So, standard heaters trickled in quite slowly, and mostly on luxury makes. In 1958, the Continental Mark III became the first Lincoln with a standard heater (it was still an option on the Capri and Premiere).
The era of specialty cars with standard heaters was short-lived, and by 1959, no Mercurys, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, or Pontiacs had a heater as standard equipment, even at the top of the line. Cadillac buyers had to step up to an Eldorado to get a standard heater, and heaters still cost extra even on senior Imperial models. Studebaker backed off too in 1959, when the Scotsman was replaced by the compact Studebaker Lark, which charged an extra $71 for a heater. Pricing pressure from the 1958 recession may have played a part.
By the dawn of the 1960s, it seemed that something as basic and essential as a heater would stay on the option sheet forever, even if it were at this point an option that practically no one skipped. But things would change quickly, and my mid-decade a heater would become standard equipment on virtually every car.
A heater became standard for every Lincoln starting in 1960.
Standard heaters hit the mainstream in 1962. That year, GM finally said “enough” to this particular base price shell game and made a heater standard equipment on every GM car, from the cheapest Chevrolet to the most expensive Cadillac.
Ford hastily followed suit, making a fresh air heater standard across the board, from the cheapest Falcon to the posh Thunderbird. However, Chrysler and AMC were slower to fall in line. Most Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, and Rambler models still charged extra for a heater as late as 1964.
In 1965, Chrysler finally made a heater and defroster standard equipment on all Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler vehicles. AMC did the same.
Once heaters became standard, many automakers made them “delete options,” so it was technically still possible to get a car without a heater if you really wanted. I’m guessing few bothered.
By 1966, the last holdout among domestic nameplates was Studebaker, which still charged $80 (about $750 in 2023) for the privilege of keeping warm. Thus, Studebaker earns the distinction of being the last American car maker to still offer a new car sans heater.
This was especially peculiar because by 1966, all Studebakers sold in North America were being assembled in the Hamilton, Ontario plant — many for Canadian customers, for whom a heater was pretty much essential. Were any late Studebaker cars actually sold without a heater? Maybe this can be the subject of a future Unicorn Hunt post.
As we all know, Studebaker stopped selling cars after 1966, but I doubt they could have gone on much longer without making a heater at least a delete option. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 103, which went into effect in December of 1971, mandated that all cars sold in the US come equipped with a defroster (and by extension a heater), so we will never again see street-legal cars sold in the US without a heater.
Postscript
Just because heaters have been required in all cars sold in the US since the early 1970s doesn’t mean that you still can’t get heaterless cars in other parts of the world.
Here is a control panel from a Mexican-market Dodge Attitude (basically a rebadged Hyundai Accent) which until recently was still available without a heater and defroster. Perhaps our Rich Baron will find some more modern heaterless cars prowling around El Salvador.
Related Reading
My 60 Lark was a factory non heater car. Getting off track a bit, a friend owns a 60 Chevy C 60 with no heater. I wonder if the trucks went a bit longer with heaters optional?
Jan 1st 1971 was when a defroster/heater was finally made standard in Australia.
As the family Fiats in New Guinea had (never used) heaters, it was quite the culture shock to come home to the first Australian winter I could remember and find cousins and friends family cars were mostly heater less.
I rembee when the Ford Laser (their version of the first FWD Mazda 323) was about to be introduced in Australia, a magazine showed the dashboard photo from a brochure of an Asian market (perhaps Malaysia) and the magazine mentioned the blanking plate on the ventilation controls for the heater, which was not required for that sauna of a market.
There were several vehicles into at least the late 60’s that had a heater delete available. A friend of mine has a 67 Dodge dart with a heater delete. Also I take issue with the statement that 62 Thunderbird was the first Ford to have a heater as standard equipment, At one time I owned a 1959 “T” bird convertable that had both A/C and heat. The A/c was an option (as I recal) but the heater was standard.
Sorry, but the ’59 Thunderbird did not have a standard heater. it was listed as an optional accessory in the brochure (link below):
http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Ford_Thunderbird/1959_Ford_Thunderbird/1959_Thunderbird_Brochure/1959%20Ford%20Thunderbird-07.jpg
I purchased the T bird used, so cannot argue the point. However the brochure referenced states “standard, and optional” equipment. It does not differentiate which are which. I stand corrected. Here is a 69 “T” Bird option list.
http://automotivemileposts.com/tbird1959optionalequipment.html
As a kid in the 60’s, I’d scan the used car ads:
“PS/PB, R/H, WW’s” was the standard.
“PW’s” pushed it up a notch.
I remember a few of those same kinds of ads into the early 1970s.
Reminds me of Mad magazine’s parody of used car ads, where R/H stood for ‘rattles and heaves’.
Apparently my ’56 Chevy 150, 2 dr sedan/business coupe was heavily optioned: radio “heater”/defroster, back seat AND full hubcaps…who knows maybe the ol gal had white walls, too in 1956?? 🙂
BTW: a zippo lighter, low on fluid, had @ as much heating power as my ol ’56’s “heater”! Even in the 1970 California “Winter” the pathetic output of her “heater” was cooly obvious……DFO
Aftermarket heaters were fairly common. My dad’s ’47 Dodge had a non-Mopar heater as well as aftermarket turn signals.
The difference in cost couldn’t have mattered much. Both would need to be installed by a dealer or a mechanic, so you’d be paying labor plus materials to get a result that was less effective and harder to use than the factory equipment.
Here in often Hot and always Humid I have done without a heater in a car.
But c-c-cold factory Air Conditioning is a must have item here.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, so my family’s cars always had heaters. My first few cars were Saabs, so of course they had heaters.
I think if I lived in a warm climate and a heater was optional, I’d still be inclined to order one for the following reasons:
1. You never know when my employer might transfer me to, say, Minnesota.
2. My son or daughter might choose a college in Minnesota, and I might pass the car along to him/her.
3. I might want to take an autumn vacation trip somewhere where early mornings are chilly, even if not Minnesota-cold.
The above could also apply to potential future owners of the car, so I’d be concerned about resale value.
No knock on Minnesota intended, but the cold fact (pun intended) is it’s cold in the winter!
Regarding making a heater optional for a lower list price, I’m reminded of the hundreds of print ads I’ve seen for cars with the fine-print “Some of the equipment illustrated is optional at extra cost” disclaimer at the bottom.
As a native Minnesotan I agree a good heater is a necessity.
Best heater was my 68 Cougar with the 428, -20F and you could comfortably ride in a t-shirt.
Had to put a heater core in my 63 Ford to fix that one.
Owned a 62 Ford convertible for one winter, nope, got rid of it.
My first Pinto, a 71 2.0L 4 speed, bought used cheap, one dead cyl. needed a valve job, common 2.0L engine problem, nobody ever adjusted the valves and generally OHC engine valves get tighter as they wear and eventually the valve gap gets to zero and you have a burnt valve.
Anyway parking outside in Minnesota back then usually required some sort of heater to be a reliable starting car. My Cougar had an inline tank heater in the heater hose. It used some sort of surge pump to move the anti-freeze. It worked well so I put one on my Pinto, proactive before proactive was a thing. Well the Pinto didn’t heat very well. New thermostat, nope, new heater core, nope. Even installed a rear window defroster fan. Had to use the scraper on the inside of the windows! Eventually it crossed my mind the tank heater could be the problem. I bypassed the heater and I had HEAT, lots of HEAT. Boy did I feel like an idiot. So I decided a frost plug heater was the solution. However fate would intervene the very day I planned on doing it. I was rear ended on the way home, totaled. At least it didn’t explode!
The other bad heater was a 2008 VW GTI. From day 1 it took forever for it to warm up once temps dropped to around 10F. Real common problem with the VW’s, crap thermostats, VW dealers would claim you needed to take it for a long drive once a week. Daily trips were too short. 10 miles one way to work was too short??? New T-stat and problem was fixed. The problem with the VW’s with the Turbo 2.0L engines was the PCV system. The system was rather elaborate mess and the low engine temps in the winter wouldn’t boil of the condensation in the engine. So you would get this massive amount of goop/mud building up in your engines PVC system. Now the PVC system is plugged because its cold outside. So now you crankcase cannot vent and the usual result is it blows out the cam cover gasket.
Great German engineering except for junk thermostats.
X 100 for the crappy German thermostats ! .
The VW A1 platform’s engines suffered mightily from that goop you mentioned ~ I could buy a clean used Rabbit with low miles that ran poorly and failed smog testing and have it whipped into like new shape in a week……
Apparently many Toyota engines had the same designed in sludgeing malady, I bought one, oops .
-Nate
I recall seeing a like new 1960 4 dr Falcon on a used car lot in a small Texas town in the 1970s, without a heater. It caught my attention even then. I remember thinking that the only option the car had was 4 doors!
A fellow soldier bought a pretty clean base model ’67 Mustang while stationed in Hawai’i while stationed there. As a used car, he didn’t know the history, but it evidently was not stored near the beach as it was unusually rust free for a Hawai’i car. He had it shipped back to CONUS (CONtinental US) when he got transferred. When I met him at our shared Alabama duty station, he asked me for help him do some work on the car.
When we lifted the hood, the engine compartment seemed exceptionally uncluttered. It took me a few minutes to realize the car had no heater hoses. Checking further, the car had no heater core. It did have heater/defroster controls, but they merely filled the customary spot in the dashboard. There were no cables connecting them to anything.
Boy, was he surprised. He had not yet driven the car during any temperatures where a heater might have been required. Evidently ordering heater delete cars was still done by some in the Hawai’i climate.
I was about to say that one doesn’t need a heater in the Philippines either. However, I do not consider 80 F to be cold. Yet, as a counterpoint, just step into a taxi in Manila where if you don’t have a parka on you will freeze your butt off. I know I have and yet the driver is in shirt sleeves. Go figure.
Thanks for this fascinating bit of history – I don’t think I ever came across a car without a heater in my northern Indiana childhood. But wow, $100-ish for a heater in the late 50s was a LOT of money back then.
My mother remembers growing up in the back seat of a 1935 Ford, where winter travel required she and her sisters to huddle under a heavy blanket in the back seat. She remembers the luxurious change when her father installed a South Wind gasoline heater in the car sometime in the late 30s.
My 1929 Model A lacked a heater, of course. I recall reading about an accessory heater sold back then that seemed like the worst idea ever – a sheetmetal shroud that enclosed the muffler, and ducted the warmth that radiated from it into the passenger compartment.
Actually the 1929 Model A was the first American car to offer an optional heater, which was the same as a number of popular accessory heaters available for Ford Ts and As, which was a steel shroud around the exhaust manifold. The radiator fan blew the heated air into a duct out the back end into an outlet under the dash.
There were also versions that got the hot air from around the muffler.
Small aircraft to this day still use heat muff around exhaust for cabin heat. CO poisoning is a real threat. Car mufflers back then rusted a bit more quickly than certified welder made stainless ones on planes.
My mother grew up in small town Ontario in the 20s and she also used to talk about using “ car blankets”. These were smaller wool blankets (maybe 3 feet square) to put over your knees. When I was a kid we still had one around the house. My mother also mentioned a charcoal fueled heater for your feet. It sat on the floor and you put your feet on it. I guess there was enough air flow in the car to avoid gassing the passengers. To put some context around this, my grandfather was a small town doctor and when my mother was little he still kept a horse and and a “cutter” for winter trips. The “cutter” was the “one horse open sleigh” from Jingle Bells. So, a closed car without a heater was still a big improvement in winter travel.
Oldsmobile offered RPO C49 Heater Delete on US-spec cars through the 1969 model year. It was available after that on export models.
Sorry, that should have said through the 1968 model year.
Since I thoroughly enjoyed your Cold Comfort Series Tom, I’m looking forward to reading this one.
A fun tongue in cheek thought: Didn’t the VW Beetle go without a heater for its entire air cooled existence? (1986 was the last one IIRC)… I mean, I know it had one, but from talking to owners, it never really worked very well. 😉
Wow have times changed. My 2016 Civic EX-T Coupe (not the top trim, but not the bottom either, firmly planted in the middle for that model year) came standard with the best automatic climate control I have ever experienced, hands down. I’ve had more than a few way more upmarket cars over the years, including this newer 2019 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring model whose automatic climate control isn’t nearly as good as that Honda’s.
No; the Beetle always had a standard heater, well before all these American cars. And no, it worked quite well, if the heater channels weren’t rusted out and one knew how to use it properly, including cracking open the vent window.
Full story here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cold-comfort/why-millions-of-people-think-old-vws-had-terrible-heating-operator-error/
I’ve been watching this argument play out for years in CC and other sources that discuss old VWs, and can see both sides regarding the effectiveness of the air-cooled VW heater. My first two vehicles in the 1970’s were VWs, a ’66 Karmann-Ghia in high school and a ’72 Super Beetle that got me through college. I loved the K-G, the Super Beetle, not so much. Used according to to the manual, with a window vent cracked and warmed up and underway, the hot air out of the left floor vent could fry the polish off your shoe and keep you quite toasty. However, the heater did not work quite like that of a typical water-cooled car, the way that Americans, by the ’50’s and ’60’s would have expected.
At least in my neck of the woods, typical practice on a cold morning was to run outside 10 minutes before you planned to go somewhere, start the engine and let it idle with the defroster going full blast. Assuming everything was working, you could go back in the house, finish your coffee, possibly smoke another Winston, and come outside to a warm car with at least the windshield partially clear. This did not work quite as well with a VW due to the lack of a fan (other that the engine cooling fan) to force the hot air. The engine fan barely forced heated air with the engine at idle. The VW really needed to be moving, with the engine making decent revs, for the heater to be effective. In bumper-to-bumper, stop and go traffic, with engine speed close to idle. neither the heater nor the defroster output were altogether great. Second gear was your friend on a cold morning.
Paul or others may disagree with and enlighten me, but I always wondered why VW didn’t add a simple two-speed electric fan to help move air through the heat exchanger, particularly in the Type IIs, IIIs, and IVs.
Paul is probably right that people didn’t follow the manual’s advice on how to optimize the heat. I’m not sure everyone who drove one knew what the two little sticks (with the red knob and the white knob) down by the emergency brake were. The right one opens the heat to the cabin and the left is for the rear seat floor vents (one of the few cars I know of that actually had heat for the rear at the time). The 1972 owners manual advises to close the floor vents (three separate operations — each slide vent in front and the lever for the floor vents) to help the defroster, but it’s not as intuitive nor as simple as sliding a lever all the way to the right to where it says DEF. I love old Volkswagens, but not everybody was cut out for one.
My ’73 base model Beetle heater was junk, mostly due to the heat exchangers rusting out. Once replaced, it cranked out enough hea to chase you out of the car at speed.
Once I set a boombox on the floor behind my driver’s seat while moving stuff out of college. When I arrived at my destination of few hours later, the plastic speaker grills were melted completely.
I always felt that the flat glass in the windshield was a great design feature as it allowed you to use an ice scraper on the inside of the window.
Your thought about the beetle was my first thought as well 🤣
And my second thought was that Paul would not let such a thought go unchallenged.
My third thought is that the heater in my ’62 Beetle may have been present but it was unfunctional. Likely due to the reasons Paul cited, it was of no help on cold days.
Then again, my good buddy had a ’68 Beetle, apparently with a better heating system on board, that was still not much help. But it was better than the one I had.
If you don’t sweat the details, you’ll never like any air cooled VW .
-Nate
My air cooled Bay window VW had a typ 4 engine and an in line electric fan, except the fan didn’t work.
My beetles and KG warmed quite well, the bus, another story. Heat for the driver, sitting up front with only a layer of cardboard for insulation from the outside sheet metal a foot away from your knees, was not there. A duct ran under the car, outside in the cold, to carry heat forward. Insulation was poor and came apart after a few years.
Great topic and an enjoyable read. Off topic – I like how the Scotsman offered a “3 way seat” adjustment. True word play as the track was a ramp the moved the seat “up” only when moved forward!
My brothers “64 Tbird”, restored but in need of work, had a “gone heater core”. Below “40-45 degrees”, ya froze in that ride.
Made for interesting winter car in western PA.
Had to keep fan blowing on windshield; down right cold air enveloped the passengers..
Always made sure to be home before sundown!! lol
In summer, no “tinted glass” and of course, no “a/c”.
That car got by on its power, smooth ride//cool looks.
Great article – thanks!
Whenever I think of heater-less cars I’m reminded of a story my father told me about his 1960(ish) Karmann Ghia. That car didn’t have a heater, and he told me that one winter day he had slushy boots, and got into his car for the highway commute to work. After a while he realized that the accelerator got frozen in position. Quite a shock – fortunately it wasn’t hard-frozen, so just a tap of the pedal got it loose. I’m sure that sort of things happened a lot in the days before heaters.
Every VW (and K-G) ever built had a standard heater/defroster since day one, (1939) well before these American cars. And they worked quite well, if properly maintained and used correctly. We busted this tired myth here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cold-comfort/why-millions-of-people-think-old-vws-had-terrible-heating-operator-error/
Although New Orleans is not a true test of a car’s heater; the 3 well maintained V-dubs I owned had heaters that would run you out of the car.
One had an aftermarket fan blower model installed that quickly pumped high volumes of heated air thru the car.
Oops… thanks for the clarification! Must’ve been a different car; it’s been decades since I’ve heard that story.
Not necessarily a different car. If the heater channels were rusted out (a common occurrence), your dad’s KG would have effectively been without a heater.
> FMVSS 103, which went into effect in December of 1971, mandated that all cars sold in the US come equipped with a defroster (and by extension a heater), so we will never again see street-legal cars sold in the US without a heater.
Wouldn’t something like Ford’s InstaClear not require a heater?
It always seemed to me that a heater should be easy and cheap to any combustion-engine vehicle, given the engine puts out heat already. Just route the air through the hot parts and let a fan, or even natural airflow from driving at higher speeds, blow hot air into the passenger compartment. I only vaguely understand how automotive heaters work though.
Just route the air through the hot parts and let a fan, or even natural airflow from driving at higher speeds, blow hot air into the passenger compartment.
That’s precisely how most early heaters worked, like the common aftermarket heaters for the Ford T and A: A steel shroud around the exhaust manifold, with an opening in the front so the radiator fan pushed air through it, and a duct at the rear into the passenger compartment.
There were two main limitations to that: In really cold weather, the amount of cold air being pushed into it from the fan tended to overpower what modest amount of heat the exhaust manifold put out, and of course if there were any leaks in the manifold, then carbon monoxide was also piped in.
Using the engine’s hot coolant and piping it through a “radiator” (heater core) in the passenger compartment was a better system, in that it extracted heat more reliably and safely.
The hot water system was introduced in 1930 by GM and/or Chrysler, depending on the source. These early hot water systems typically placed the heater core under the front seats, so that the rear seat passengers got a nice blast of hot air for their feet, which is actually the best place to heat (near the floor, not up high).
Studebaker maintained a heater core in the floor under the passenger seat up through the very last Hawks. Same with the other models until an under-dash unit was introduced in the early 1960s – I think either 61 or 63, replacing the old floor system. The floor heaters had a small second heater core behind the dash for a windshield defroster.
This article reminded me of optional “Rear Seat Heaters” in American cars that were typically underneath the front passenger seat and blew back wards .
I remeber someone who bought a well used 1963 Ford full sized station wagon so equipped and it was marvelous until the water hope or pipe under neath began to leak, then they by passed it .
-Nate
I have seen a couple of Fords with InstaClear windshields and neither ever worked. I would think that a defroster would still be required since it also defogs the side and rear window.
What’s interesting about the Mexican-spec Dodge Attitude heaterless control panel is that the blend dial, and presumably the blend door, is still there.
In the seminal story “On The Road”, Jack Kerouac tells of the time Neil Cassidy drove his 1948 Hudson out east, to a Christmas gathering of Kerouac’s family in NC and thenup to NY and back. The Hudson had been bought in the Bay Area and lacked a heater. Lots detailed descriptions of huddling up under blankets (and with female passenger(s) to keep warm.
I love reading about heaters in July!
Many US cars in the late 50s had two kinds of heaters available: Standard (often called “Recirculating”); and Deluxe (Ford called their deluxe “MagicAire”). The standard system typically had just one knob, which controlled fan speed with no temp adjustment. In 1959, Chevrolet charged $52 for Recirculating and $80 for Deluxe. (By comparison, air conditioning was $468).
My ’59 Chevy has the cheap Recirculating heater, and it actually works quite well! I don’t think I’m missing anything without the Deluxe. On GM cars of this period, the fan is on if the heater is on. I don’t think this is necessary, as the forward motion ram effect often provides enough heat.
1960-63 Falcons/Comets had these interesting metal vent doors under the dash which you reached under to open like a safe (without a combination lock). There was also a little sheet metal heater door above the driveshaft hump which you could open and close by hand.
Lots of cars used to have some sort of door in the footwell panel forward of the front door, like those little doors in many Studebakers, or the vent louvres in the ’66 Dodge Polara we had when I was growing up that allowed air into the car when it was moving, controlled by a pair of tabs above the driver’s knees, one for each side, pull to open. What was the last American car to have these rather than ventilation that was fully integrated into an HVAC system?
GM B bodies without a/c maintained the old fashioned, ram air, ventilation. There were three vents, one centre and one on each side. The levers were under the steering wheel.
These vents were not integrated into the heat system. They could not be blended nor fan boosted.
Cessna aircraft are like that, no fan for the heater, just ram air off the exhaust manifold. A carbon monoxide detector is a good idea lol
The Darts and Valiants after 1967 also had the vent doors under the dash.
I love reading about heaters in July!
Yeah it was 103 at my house yesterday which is why I was in Alameda, on the Hornet, at 75 F. However, I have to go outside right after this and move cars around to change the oil in my wife’s Mazda 3 and remove a tire to find, what she describes, as a strange noise the last six days. Hope to be inside before 90 F at 12:30 soaring to 99 at 1600 hours. A cool day…
I used to have an ’86 Toyota van and the owners manual had instructions on how to operate the AC without heater option. That would be weird having a vehicle with AC and no heater. I guess those vans were imported all over the world though to different climates.
Another well written article .
The ‘A’ Model Ford’s heater was a different exhaust manifold that had a waffle shaped thing surrounded by two cast pieces, for a 1920’s car it worked okay .
I always laugh at those who claim air cooled VW’s had poor heaters, in the Typ I series unless you didn’t operate it properly or you failed to keep all those fiddly bits in place it had a decent heater if not the best defrosters .
My old 1959 Plymouth Plaza two door sedan was huge yet had neither heater nor radio .
-Nate
My Dad’s 61 T-bird did not have a Heater, But he sprang for the “Swing A Way” steering wheel & pwr windows & seats.
Tom, any plans to write up the Nash Weather Eye heater? It was quite an advance at the time.
The heart of that “Weather Eye” heating system was the ‘Ranco hot water valve’, a marvelous device that GM used in it’s Task Force trucks in the 1950’s .
A separate article needs to be written about it .
Last thing I knew NAPA’s BELKAMP line still sold the rubber seals that are the *only* part on them that ever fails .
-Nate
My first partner had an early 80’s Toyota Cressida that was ex-Singapore and that didnt have a heater, I had to install one
My dad was a skinflint when it came to cars. 6 cyl, 3-on-the-tree. It was many years before he got a radio, but they always had a heater!
Same for my mom, 6-cyl and 3-on-the-tree. Our ’67 Chevy Bel Air was the first with a radio, but all the prior cars had heaters, certainly necessary in Pittsburgh winters!
1965 Studebaker without a heater option.
Wow! Where did you find this?
The car was sold new in Arizona.
my parents bought an ex california government car. 1961 ford station wagon.
very bare bones. had a Recirculating heater. no fresh air inlet. Then, we moved. Bringing that car to New York State made for challenging winter driving. interior, all the glass would fog up from respiration of the family riding around inside. oh, and it had vacuum powered windshield wipers. would sweep like mad sitting at idle, then slow to a crawl as you accelerated away from a traffic light or stop sign. Moisture on both sides of the glass.
Accelerate? 3 sp manual transmission and straight 6. not a neck snapping response.
My father’s first car, a mid Fifties second hand e93a Ford Popular, didn’t have a heater – no joke in a Scottish winter.
I remember Grandmother’s Ford Pop without a heater. But I think it did have ‘crotch coolers’ small flaps between the front wings and the doors.
I think the side valve engines on the small Fords and Morris lacked water pumps and weren’t available with heaters because of this.
I once got a ride in a Crosley station wagon belonging to a friend of my parents, and it those. Simple hinged flaps, opening directly to the outside air. Of course it makes sense that such a bare-bones car would have such a thing.
In the mid 60s my friend’s mother had a Morris Minor and it did have a heater, but the control for it was simply a valve under the hood. So effectively you turned it on in the autumn and off in the spring. If it got too hot you just opened a window. I don’t think it had a fan, but I might be wrong.
Oddly enough ;
The Ford’s “Thermo Syphon” pump less cooling system actually worked pretty well .
That didn’t stop the aftermarket from making add on water pumps…
-Nate
Brother’s 20 year old VW Caravelle T4, originally an 8 seater, has an eberspacher in the cooling system. This is a diesel burner which operates at low temperatures to reduce the warm up time of the 2.5 turbo diesel engine. It has a separate exhaust which exits under a front wheelarch.
Yeap, as you correctly assumed, heaters are not a huge need down here in El Salvador. Most cars come with them, however, since it’s easier for carmakers to leave them on that bother with reengineering for these markets. The heaters remain unused, and no one knows of their existence until they start leaking. Like it happened with my 1996 Golf. Once that occurred, the local mechanic just bypassed the system and stuck a Vanagon-derived seal on the engine block. In general, most local mechanics know what to do in that regard when heaters die unused.
Curious that the Dodge Attitude, with no heat or windshield defroster, has a button for the rear window defroster.
But does it actually have a rear window defroster?
I found a pic of the last one, and it did. I actually bet there is only window glass with it, and wiring harnesses with it, so I bet it’s there in all of them.
The following applies to accessories in general, not just heaters. I don’t know how it is with European and Asian cars in their home markets today, but when I was a kid, there was a narrative that imported cars in North America came pretty much loaded because it was much easier to do it that way when an ocean separated the factory and the car’s first owner. ISTR to recall reading that in Europe, base-model cars came more or less stripped, with option lists.
My Dad’s 1962 Studebaker Lark wagon was delivered new to Tucson with nothing but tinted glass (the lightly Coke bottle green stuff that usually showed up on A/C cars). No heater, no radio, no overdrive, no cigarette lighter, no nothing. It is a Deluxe (what Stude was calling their bottom spec model in ’62), which did include two speed electric wipers as standard. Winter nights in Tucson tend to hover in the 30’s, but can dip below freezing as well.
One other odd thing about this car, is that it shows a fair amount of rust commensurate with driving in an area that uses road salt… perhaps someone used it to attend college in Flagstaff? Who knows…
I was impressed with old-time ads (before I reached driving age) of cars listing R&H which I guessed meant “radio and heater”. Why the 2 were combined is a mystery since they don’t have complementary functions, but that’s what I remember…no just “R” or “H”. Of course I was also mystified by the abbreviation “OBO”…initially thinking “owned by owner”? before realizing that’s dumb, and figuring out what it really meant.
Before my Dad met my Mom he bought his first car, a ’56 Plymouth Plaza 2 door stripper….it had no radio, but as he lived in northeastern PA, I’d guess it did have a heater. He later took it to southern California, where a heater wouldn’t be much use, it got traded in on a ’61 Ramber Classic wagon, which at least had automatic (for my Mom) but also probably had the heater and an AM radio. We returned to the east coast after that (my Dad moved around a lot for his jobs) and mostly lived in the northern or central states where a heater would be appreciated at least some part of the year.
In the late 70’s, I remember car ads bragging about standard AM radio, and rear defroster strips (before it became mandatory). Cars today are downright plush with pretty much all with power windows/locks and air conditioning, which certainly wouldn’t even have been in some luxury cars in the 1950’s.
I recall talking with a classmate of the “luxury” of having air conditioning even for a car in New England, where of course it can be pretty humid at times, but is cold much of the year…we agreed that the ability to defog the windows was a big benefit of air conditioning such that it was a pretty good idea almost anywhere you’d have humidity enough to make fogging windows a problem…but that took a few years longer to become essentially standard in all cars. (when did that happen?)
hate to bust your bubble but showroom stock race cars that are street legal racecars in the Sports Car Club of America. They do not have heaters air conditioning or radios this is an option that you can do I know on the Ford Mustang the Camaro and the Corvette just a FYI thank you all right
What about Jeeps? I see no mention of the CJ’s here.
My Citroen 2CV has a heater which actually does put out some heat, but it is quickly overpower by the poor weatherstripping of the body. Being air cooled it uses a sheet metal box around the exhaust manifolds (one on each side). The air comes from the shroud around the cylinders, so it is the engine cooling air, being pushed by the engine fan. The air flow is not strong, so I added an after market fan to the defroster side, but it does not make much difference. It really does not matter as I put it away for the winter.
Unlike the VW you do not have to open a window to help the airflow. If you happen to have left the windows closed, once you reach highway speed the tops of the doors bend out, so you get automatically get good air extraction.
I am not sure of the history of the car, but I was told it was Belgian, but it does have a heated rear window that seems to be factory installed.
One interesting experience I had Dwight the heat exchangers on the exhaust manifold. I was driving to a small city about 45 km away and after about 15 km on the highway I could smell something burning. My dad always said if you smell smoke in a car not to worry because it is coming from the car in front of you. The proble was that there was no one in front of us! I stopped and with a fire extinguisher in hand, opened the hood. There were flames coming from one of the heat exchangers. It seems a mouse had built a nest inside and that was what was burning. When you turn the heater off it opens a small flap to let cool air in and a second flap to send the hot air out through the fender. The problem is that the flap to let the cold air in also lets in the mice.
67, 68, 69 Corvettes with the L-88 package came without a heater or a radio.
Took my Skylark out last weekend, and towed my racetrack camper. I had to stop, climb into the back seat to wipe the condensation off the back window.
I’d never missed a rear demister. Until then.