A car cooler is an automobile window-mounted evaporative air cooler, sometimes referred to as a swamp cooler. It is an early type of automobile air conditioner.Hinckley, p. 54

Technology

To cool the air it used latent cooling of vaporization, in other words, cooling by water evaporation.Sibley, p. 221 Water inside the cooler evaporates and in the process transfers heat from the surrounding air to evaporate the water, giving in return cool moisture-laden air inside. The lower the

humidity Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present. Humidity depe ...

, the better it works. Because of the dry desert air, they were popular in the

southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

states of California, Arizona, West Texas, New Mexico and Nevada. Thermador Car Cooler

The technology was an after-sale add-on product for cars and has been around since 1930. It was popular from the 1930s through to the 1960s. The basic unit looked like a canister-type vacuum cleaner. The car coolers were used on antique and

classic car A classic car is an older car, typically 25 years or older, though definitions vary.While other languages, such as German and Dutch, may refer to classic cars as "oldtimers", this usage is unknown in English, where "old-timer" refers to an elder ...

s from the Ford Model As to

Hot Rod Hot rods are typically American cars that might be old, classic, or modern and that have been rebuilt or modified with large engines optimised for speed and acceleration. One definition is: "a car that's been stripped down, souped up and made ...

s. One model used

balsa ''Ochroma pyramidale'', commonly known as the balsa tree, is a large, fast-growing tree native to the Americas. It is the sole member of the genus ''Ochroma''. The tree is famous for its wide usage in woodworking, with the name ''balsa'' being ...

-wood shavings in a pad within the unit. The water from the container soaked the shavings and when air was forced through the unit the water would evaporate giving a cooling effect. The cool air would blow through a vent at a right angle on the main unit into the passenger compartment. Car cooler front view

There were several manufacturers of car coolers, examples being Thermador, Classic Aire,

Sears Roebuck Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

(Allstate brand), which also carried the Thermador brand, and Star Mfg. The car cooler came in different models from "

ram-air A ram-air intake is any intake design which uses the dynamic air pressure created by vehicle motion, or ram pressure, to increase the static air pressure inside of the intake manifold on an internal combustion engine, thus allowing a greater massf ...

" to "fan-powered" types. The "ram-air" type mounted on the passenger side window. It would only work when the car was in forward motion as the air was forced into the tube. It had a water reservoir that held about a gallon () of water, which would provide "air conditioned" cooling for about . The "fan-powered" model was designed to work when the car was not in motion or when moving at low speeds. The car cooler is an outdated technology as refrigeration methods used today are more effective. However, there are manufacturers that still make car coolers for antique and classic cars.

Footnotes

References

* Hinckley, Jim, ''The Big Book of Car Culture: The Armchair Guide to Automotive Americana,'' MotorBooks/MBI Publishing Company, 2005, {{ISBN, 0-7603-1965-0 * Sibley, His article in Popular Mechanics (May 1949) ''Air condition your car for summer driving'' Automotive cooling systems Cooling technology Car windows