Can someone please tell me what company makes the a/c unit in this car? Maybe some of you have some experience with these units.
Don't know but if I had that many vents in my dash grille and had to have AC, I'd be installing an in dash unit in a heartbeat.
That unit has probably been in the car since it was almost new if it wasn't a dealer installed item. several outfits made similar units then.
Is it actually connected to anything or a stand alone. If it is a standalone unit then it is what is called a "swamp cooler". At least thats what my Grandparents in AZ used toi call them. Basically fill it with ice and water and viola, cool air. Well for a little while until the ice melted then damp air that smelled like a swamp.
only available on ebay, they're usually sears brand... (the fan runs off a 12 volt circuit, through the cigarette lighter)
I dig it... What are those? Cup holders??? Must not work very well, judging by the fan mounted on the steering column.
That could be too. But I think I have seen similar ac units to that one when I was living in Texas. The more common units are the Mark IV units that Used to show up under a lot of dashes in the 60's and 70's before AC was pretty much a standard item. You can still find them new in the box on back shelves sometimes but Vintage Air sells a repro unit.
Back in the day Sears and JC Penny sold those ,they are stand alone units,but not swamp coolers,they had a compressor in them. Petejoe<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_3096292", true); </SCRIPT> Don't know but if I had that many vents in my dash grille and had to have AC, I'd be installing an in dash unit in a heartbeat That dash is a 53 or 54 Chevy and what you are seeing in it is a ashtray,speaker grill and glove box door... NOT just regular vents............
They were also available from dealers well into the sixties. If you ordered factory air, you got in-dash, if you bought AC as an acessory you got an underdash unit supplied as a kit from Ford or GM.
That's what it looks like to me as well. I have one, not the same model as the one in the picture but it's very similar (I found it at a yard sale, still brand new in the box and never used.) It plugs into the cigarette lighter. It's too humid here in the summer for it to do much good but I can imagine in dry parts of the country it would work better.
That gizzmo to the left of the column is a pretty cool fan! I have no fucking clue what that cuntraption in the middle iz>>>>.
I's still give up a speaker grille for a big A/C vent in a minute. I did this very thing in my 50 pickup dash in the 90's and ran two large vents out the floor too.