According to the big book, Chrysler sold Airtemp to Fedders
in 1978 under John Riccardo and Gene Cafiero, also sold an
unfinished PA assembly plant to VW, disposed of a recreation
area in MT, and got government subsidies from the UK.
--Roger van Hoy, '55DeSoto, '42DeSoto, '66Plymouth,
'73Duster, '81 Imperial, Washougal, WA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Sealey" <mopar2ya@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 7:02 PM
Subject: Re: [FWDLK] Air Conditioners/Airtemp History
| --- cpollock@xxxxxxxx wrote:
|
| (snips at will)
|
| > This is all I know about Airtemp. Airtemp was
| > Chrysler's air conditioning division and they made
| > air conditioners for almost everything. They also
| > made refrigerators and freezer along with
| > refrigeration units under the "Kelvinator" brand
| > name. Anyone remember those?
|
| Kelvinator wasn't really part of the Chrysler story
| until '87, being a division of Nash-Kelvinator and
| later AMC before being sold to White Consolidated
| Industries in the early '70s... ...Chrysler was,
| however, in the appliance industry in kind of a
| backdoor manner in the '60s, when they made Kenmore
| sewing machines for Sears...
|
| > But Airtemp was also the brand name that all air
| > conditioning units for Chrysler were put under.
| > On factory air cars a small "Air Conditioning by
| > Airtemp" sticker appears on the rear of the
| > quarter windows. This was for all of the
| > Chrysler cars.
|
| True from about '67 on. The sticker Charles is talking
| about, which being later than the FL era has a
| pentastar, also appeared in the lower RH corner of the
| back window in '64-'66. Prior to that, and this
| includes FL stuff, a larger sticker appeared in the
| lower RH corner of the back window. This sticker had
| "Airtemp" in kind of a "'50s modern" script, and
| naturally no pentastar. Not sure what year that
| started, I'm guessing '59 or '60 but could be wrong.
| Earliest car I've seen this early decal in is a '59
| Imperial, latest was my uncle's '63 Polara.
|
| BTW, the '57 Plymouth owners' manual refers to the
| factory AC as "CarTemp". Anyone ever seen stickers
| saying this or know how long that went on? Seems to me
| the Imperials were using the Airtemp name then.
| Perhaps the Plymouth units came from an outside
| supplier?
|
| > This sticker ONLY appears on factory air cars,
| > not dealer add cars.
|
| Sorta true. '60s-'70s MoPar dealer add-on air had a
| different sticker that said "Air Conditioned by
| Chrysler", and had a pentastar but did not use the
| Airtemp name. It was about this same time that
| Chrysler started using the "Cool Aire" name on the
| aftermarket units. These decals may have said
| something like "Chrysler Aftermarket Sales
| Corporation" (it's been years since I've seen one).
|
| > As for dealer installed air, they all hung under
| > the dash. I have never seen them anywhere else,
| > and that includes all of the various brands.
|
| My grandparents had a '67 Dart with dealer installed
| indash air. It didn't use the control buttons the
| factory unit used, controlled instead by knobs next to
| the lower vent just under the ignition switch, but it
| appeared to use the same vents as the factory unit
| including the AC-specific defroster vents. Years
| later, my parents had dealer installed indash air put
| into their '75 AMC Matador, but that's a whole other
| story.
|
| > As for when and how Airtemp came to be and their
| > eventual demise, I don't know. I would speculate
| > they were sold off in the early 80's as part of the
| > federal restructuring of Chrysler Corp.
|
| Absolutely correct, at least as far as time period. I
| always assumed the events were connected.
|
| =====
| Mike Sealey, San Francisco CA
| '57 Plymouth Sport Suburban
|
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