1940's Cavalier / Frigidaire "water bath" Coca-Cola Cooler...

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turbokinetic

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Got an interesting project upcoming. A neighbor approached me to get this running for him.

 

It is a 1940's Coca-Cola cooler, made by Cavalier. While it looks like a chest freezer, it's quite different.  It is designed to be filled with water, about 6 inches deep. The device to the left is an agitator. It agitates the water around an evaporator coil, and keeps the water bath ice cold. There's a light bulb in there as well, so the Coke bottles sit in a sparkling, agitating, ice cold water bath. These were designed to appeal to the folks visiting the country general store; back in the day.  For years prior to this; the Coca-Cola coolers had looked the same way. They just had an ice tub inside, and the ice truck would stock it with ice every day. People were familiar with the look of the Coca-Cola chest, and with pulling their cold drink out of a bath of ice water.  This machine took away the need for an ice truck; while keeping the familiar sensation of pulling out a dripping, icy cold bottle from ice water.

 

Has a "hoss" of a large Frigidaire Meter-Miser compressor with a fan-cooled condenser. 

 

My neighbor wants it to be slightly modified. It will keep the water bath system fully functional and intact.  We will also install a fan-equipped finned evaporator coil inside the cabinet up at the top. This will allow the unit to be used with or without water. They plan to use it at gatherings and antiques fairs etc.

 

They're going to bring it over here tomorrow. Definitely expect some videos and discussion about this one!

 

I will be doing the modification and mechanical restorations. Another local business will do the cosmetics on it, once it's running.

 

Sincerely,

David

 

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Yep, I remember those.  Some 7-11s had them in the 50s.  One of those things when you're a kid you think will always be there.  No coin mech, pay at the counter. 

 

Then, M-bop. 

 

Thanks, nothing like a photo to remind one what all one remembers.
 
Thanks guys!  LOL at the bait swimming in the cooler!

 

This was a gimminck by Coca-Cola Co. to sell their soft drinks by making their display different from the other guys. It was definitely unsanitary when the water wasn't changed as often as the manual recommends. That's one of the reasons they went to the dry coolers later on!

 

 
 
Neat Machine and History

I am afraid that I also remember seeing a few of these operating, LOL. The advantage of these machines is they could cool additional bottles very quickly when they refilled them and also the very uniform cooling of the sodas.

 

I imagine they fell out of favor because of more maintenance from having to change the water after awhile and the mess from water that would drip from bottles as they were removed from the machine [ probably why most of these coolers I ever saw were outside the convenience store ]

 

Hi David, I am looking forward to seeing more pictures of this restoration, however it seems like a lot of work to try to put in a 2nd evaporator, fan etc in fairly limited space, but I am sure you can do it.

 

John L.
 
Moxie Soda

Is Moxie still available? I've never tasted it. I seem to remember reading sometime ago an account from someone trying it for the first time. And that it had a very distinct flavor; making it something either you liked or didn't.
 
I remember a little country store out from Seminary, MS that had a cooler like this, with the bottles in cold water. It was about a mile from my grandfather's house, and my cousins, sister and I would walk over there to get a drink and snacks. I also remember the screen door had a metal sign saying "Colonial is Good Bread".
 
Seeing this cooler has brought back such memories!

Seeing that water-cooled cooler really brings back memories…thanks so much for posting. When I was a kid, we would spend a week or two every summer at my aunt’s cottage at Higgins Lake, which is located in Michigan’s lower peninsula. Days were spent swimming in the lake or playing on the beach, exploring acres of woods to find weird bugs and old abandoned cabins, riding bikes, picking wild blackberries for mom to make a pie, or hanging out with other kids we met up there.

Auntie had an old portable Zenith TV in the living room that had rabbit ear antennas with tin-foil wrapped around the tips. It only got one station – and the reception was so bad you could hardly make out what was on the screen, so the TV was never on. So if it was raining, or in the late evening, we would listen to the radio or play records, read books, play pinochle or board games, and sit around and talk with neighbors and friends. We were never bored – not for a moment – and by the end of the day, we fell fast asleep with the cool summer breezes coming across the lake and through the cottage windows.

Mom and auntie made breakfast for us; pancakes, waffles or eggs, which we devoured and then shot out the door to start a new day. Every few days, my brothers and I would make the hike – probably a mile – to the closest store. It was an old wooden building that was painted brown. Near the road, it had a rusty Shell sign from the 40’s with a couple of pumps in the front. Between them was a sign that read, “Honk for Service!” and from time to time one of the people who worked there was gassing up a car. There wasn’t any self-service in those days.

A rickety screen door was in the middle of the building’s front and it had a bell attached to a spring that would jingle every time the door opened. When I would walk in I was greeted by that familiar smell that so many places near the water often have – a little musty, a little woodsy, a little stale, a little damp. The store seemed to sell everything, but I think its most popular item was worms. There was an old refrigerator near the cash register that had “Live Bait” painted on it and it was packed with round cardboard containers with holes poked in the lids. My dad bought one once and I remember seeing the night crawlers moving around the dirt that was inside the container.

Funds were limited, so our purchases were generally limited to candy and pop (that’s what we call soda here in Michigan). On those hot and humid summer afternoons, nothing tasted better than an ice cold pop, and against the back wall of the store was the very machine you have posted are refurbishing!! I would make a bee-line for that cooler. From the perspective of a 10-year old, it was a gigantic, enormous thing. I was just tall enough to be able to flip open the lid and look down inside. Sure, there was Coca-Cola among the offerings, but my eyes would quickly scan the bottle caps that were just above the water's surface. NuGrape, 7-UP, Vernor’s, Nesbitt’s Orange, Squirt, Hire’s Root Beer…oh, what to choose! As I stood there debating the choices, I would hear the whirring of the water circulating pump as I watched the tiny streams form around the necks of the pop bottles. When I finally decided, I would reach my hand in the cooler – so very, very cold – and pull out a dripping wet bottle of goodness. I’m sure I must had dripped water across the creaky wooden floors on my way to the cash register, but no one ever said anything. Next to the door there was a bottle opener that hung on the wall with a metal box underneath to catch the caps. I’d open that bottle and take that first sweet ice-cold sip…so good!

I had never seen a water-cooled cooler anywhere else but inside that little store. And I haven’t seen one since, but I’m so grateful to have been reminded from your post. The memories just came flooding back to me! What a wonderful time that was for me and my family. I guess every generation remembers certain things with fondness, but I’m so glad to have been born at a time when I could have found so much adventure and pleasure in simple things. Thanks again!
 
Kevin

When was the last time you were back there? Is the cabin still in the family? Wouldn't be surprised the store building is long gone. Im sure the area has changed so you would hardly recognize it.

Of the different sodas you mentioned I've never heard of Vernors. Did they make different flavors? Is Squirt still made today? It was a lemon-lime flavor, no? Never tried it as I recall.
 
Vernors is a ginger ale type soda, good once in a while but very very fizzy. As far as I know it's only available in Michigan. Yes, Squirt is still available, it's a citrusy flavored soda, very similar to Fresca if that's any more familiar.
 
I was showing this post to my wife yesterday and it brought up a lot of memories for us. The Rollerway, which was a local teen rollerskating indoor rink with hard wood floors had one of these. We remember this well. The unit was in a small room just barely fit the machine, behind the machine was a door that that they used to stock the machine from the back. The floor had heavy rubber mats with large holes in it for the water to go through when you pulled the bottles out. This way that water stayed in that room instead of going out onto the hard wood floors. Many a happy Sunday afternoon was spent there, and always had a pop or two while taking a break from skating. It was great to watch the water swirl around all the bottles with all the colorful caps showing. Thanks for this thread and I glad to see these again. Time period for us was late 60's early 70's.

Jon
 
Oh, Dustin..........

This OHIOan has been drinking Vernors for most of his 58 years!

(Now I take my Vernors (and other pop) room temperature. Prefer it that way)

Lawrence/Maytabear
 
We have Vernor's waaaaaaaay out here on the left coast.  I can remember it being popular with the hippie dippy organic types in the early '70s.

 

I'm surprised that Squirt isn't widely known like other popular soda flavors.  It's been around as long as I can remember.  When I was a kid, I "salvaged" a metal advertising sign for Squirt (maybe 16" x 36" or so) from a small grocery store that had ceased operations.  I remember giving it away to a friend a few years later.

 

I don't recall ever having seen one of these swirling type coolers.  The oldest I remember were the ones that had the necks of the bottles sticking up, and you had to grab the small  exposed portion of the neck and slide (yank, actually) the bottle down and jog it over to the area where it was possible to extract it.  I could never get the hang of it.  I don't think I've seen a cooler of that type since I was 10 or so.
 
When I was a young child in the early '60s, a store in Gadsden, AL, down the street from my grandmother's house, had one of these. There was nothing better than pulling out a Coke, in the old heavy glass bottle, from that just-this-side-of-freezing water. They had a towel hanging from a peg in the front of the machine for you to dry off the bottle, next to the opener. I remember them having Coke, Nehi orange and grape, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, Double Cola (a regional brand), RC Cola (another regional brand), Tab (which was awful) and Yoo-Hoo (which was also awful). They had a grape drink that IIRC was yellow in color, carbonated, and not as sweet as Nehi. I liked them, but one day they didn't have them anymore. My great uncle told me that the company that made them had gone out of business. That was a difficult concept for a 5-year-old to understand.

RP2813, I remember the type of machine you are talking about. The bottles hung from metal tracks, which held them at the narrow part of the neck, a couple of inches under the cap. There were several rows. You'd slide the one you wanted to the end of the row, where there was a perpendicular track that ran to an area where it was wider, but there was a plastic piece that prevented the bottle from being pulled out. When you point coins in, you could pull on the bottle and the plastic piece would tilt up out of the way and let you pull the bottle out. It was purely mechanical except for the refrigeration. I last saw one of these in the early '80s, in an office where I was a co-op student. Since we bought drinks in bulk from the distributor, they rented us the machine cheap and gave us the keys. We set it for free dispense and just had everyone chip in every two weeks to pay for the delivery. One day we had a computer prototype that kept shutting down because it was overheating. So we put it inside the drink machine. It worked perfectly. The distributor delivery guy showed up and wondered why the machine had ribbon cables running out from under the lid...
 
Dustin

Thanks for the info concerning Vernors and Squirt. I researched both and found the following:

Vernors is a ginger flavored soft drink and the oldest surviving ginger ale brand in the United States. It was created in 1866 by James Vernor, a Detroit pharmacist.

Squirt is a caffeine-free, grapefruit-flavored, carbonated soft drink, created in 1938 in Phoenix, Arizona. Squirt (originally named Citrus Club) was created by Herb Bishop in 1938, after experimenting in college. The result used less fruit juice and less sugar than some other drinks, and Bishop claimed it had the "freshest, most exciting taste in the marketplace".

I believe we have Squirt here just never tried it. Ive never been much of a soda drinker.
 
Double Cola and Royal Crown were both common on the west coast.  We had a Double Cola bottling facility in an old corrugated quonset hut just a few blocks from our house when I was a kid -- and I liked Double Cola best.

 

RC and their no-calorie brand, Diet Rite Cola, can still found today.  I think 7-Up may own them now.  I bought a 12-pack of RC (because it was on sale) not too long ago.  Not all stores carry it.  I'm not a cola snob, so any brand is OK with me.
 
Royal Crown

Yup. We have RC on the east coast as well.
I think, like you said, you don't see it in every store, but we do have it.
And, it's been around for a while!
This old tin sign came out of a store that my wife's family owned ages ago.
It's supposed to have a picture of a bottle on the left side as well.
Unfortunately, someone must have chopped it off due to space limitations in the store or something.
Still a nice looking sign.

Barry

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So the owner of this cooler got in touch with his auto body man and the repairs are a go for sure. I took the cooling system out and built this sexy wooden work stand for it. I don't think I need to quit my dayjob to become a carpenter!

 

The test stand keeps the lines in their proper shape. Also, I an hang a bucket of water over the evaporator coil and put load on the unit that way for testing.

 

The wiring was hideously deterio-rotted.

 

Removed wiring from the relay compartment as well. It was all extra crunchy.

 

Notice the warranty seal is still in place over the cover screw on the control!

 

The fan motor.... is a real work of American engineering. The motor is 100% sealed. There was no dust in it at all. It has replaceable standard ball bearings. This was an early maintenance-free motor and it apparently worked for 50+ years. Only after the cooler was abandoned and not run for decades did the bearings dry up.

 

The quality I am seeing here on all parts of this machine is a real attest to Frigidaire and GM.  This was a commercial unit so the engineers got to play and not be constrained by bean counters as they were with the residential stuff.

 

Will get fan motor bearings tomorrow and this motor will go back together for another 50 years.

 

 

 

 

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