The cool dudes

Cool Mavericks is a new book that documents the history of automotive air-conditioning in Australia and New Zealand, profiling the mavericks and entrepreneurs who embraced the idea long before the car industry woke up to it. Here are some highlights:

• Before the advent of automotive air-conditioning, cars were kept naturally cool through a process known as the ‘four and sixty’ – four windows down at 60 miles an hour.

• When fully enclosed vehicles came on the market (around 1933) nobody thought about air-conditioning them. The flexible hoses that carried the refrigerants hadn’t yet been invented and the rigid copper tubing used in early attempts would often split, with the toxic refrigerant gases posing a fatal risk to vehicle occupants.

• The first production-line air-conditioned car was the 1940 model Packard in Detroit, but it was not truly factory air – the air-con was designed and installed by a company better known for cooling beer, with ice.

• It took a group of aftermarket mavericks in the hot and steamy state of Texas to drive the new industry forward, with Dallas-Fort Worth still regarded as the spiritual home of mobile air-conditioning.

• Aussie innovators weren’t far behind but with no manuals and no training, these mechanics, auto electricians and opportunists had to teach themselves about an accessory that most people, including car makers, branded a one-hit wonder.

• By the 1970s and 1980s the demand for automotive air-conditioning in Australia was so great that some workshops had up to 20 mechanics on the floor, busily installing systems in all manner of vehicles.

• Thousands of imported cars were ferried in convoys from the wharves to small aftermarket workshops, to appear on the dealership floor next day sporting “factory-fitted air”. In fact, “factory air” was a common fib told by many dealerships, with most systems fitted by the aftermarket.

• Mark IV was a pioneer car air-conditioning system born at the John E Mitchell plant in Dallas, Texas. It also became an Australian pioneer, popularised by the ‘little Aussie bleeder’ Norman Gunston, who appeared in TV ads throwing a bucket of water over passengers in a top-down convertible in a busy Sydney street.

• The global HVAC designer Air International Thermal Systems, now a major supplier to leading car makers including Land Rover, was born in Australia in 1967 when engineer Owen John, annoyed that his brand new Jaguar XJ6 was not air-conditioned, bought a stack of parts and did it himself.