Automotive Air Conditioning

In 1933 New York company was the first to offer air conditioning installation in cars. Their customers were mostly limousine and luxury car operators.

In 1939 the Packard Motor Car Company began offering air conditioning units commercially in their cars making Packard Motor Car Company the first automobile manufacture to offer air conditioning. Those first air conditioners were made by Bishop and Babcock Co, of Cleveland Ohio.

The air conditioning units were called "Weather Conditioner", these early A/C units were both air conditioners and heaters. The cars ordered with "Weather Conditioners" were sent to the Bishop and Bacock factory from Packard's East Grand Blvd facility for the conversion. After the A/C conversion was finished the cars were then sent to a local dealership for customer pickup.

The A/C conversions were fully warranted by Packard, unfortunately they were not successful for a lot reasons:

The systems did not have a temperature thermostat or an automatic shut off mechanism, the only way to turn them off was to manually switch the blower off.

The drive belt was continuously connected to the compressor any movement would allow cold air to enter the car. In later systems this problem was remedied by the use of electrically operated clutches.

The main evaporator and blower system was located in the trunk and took up almost all of the trunk space. In later years the trunks were larger so the lack of trunk space was not as much of an issue. Also there were several feet of plumbing traveling from to and from the engine compartment and the trunk and was an unreliable service.

It was a costly addition to a vehicle in 1939 the price was $274 US dollars to give you an idea how much of an expense that would have been to a buyer, in 2014 that same A/C unit would be an added cost of $4,692 US dollars. The air conditioner conversion proved to be too costly and unaffordable to most of the population in the post depression, pre-war era in America.

 Packard discontinued the option after 1941.

If you are having problems with your air condition system go to: 

http://www.2carpros.com/articles/car-air-conditioner-not-working-or-is-weak