My dad was an aerospace engineer and his very best friend an a/c guy for Carrier but both loved to mess around with cars on weekends. Logically this would have led to us having great, well maintained car a/c but nothing could be further from the truth; my father hates being cold and doesn’t mind being hot. He also rarely bought new cars so the usual drill was he’d buy a used car and once the a/c gave any tiny hiccup he’d disconnect it. I remember this happening with a ‘61 Galaxie 500 and then a ‘67 Citroen ID19. In his defense, the big-block Galaxie was prone to vapor lock so extra underhood heat was the last thing it needed. Oddly enough my grandmother’s very similar ‘64 Ford wagon with the Thunderbird 390 had pretty decent a/c and never vapor locked, that a/c still worked in ‘97 when she died. I think the first car my parents had with good a/c was an ‘83 Peugeot 505S my mother bought nearly new and forbid him to touch, that system had a new blower motor at some point but nothing else and still worked at 180,000 miles.
My first car, a ‘69 Citroen ID19, did not have a/c but my second car did, a much loved ‘70 Citroen DS21 Pallas. However the DS had over 100k very hard miles when I got it and in deference to the timing chain I never used the a/c since it still had the original York compressor. Those put out well but have high cyclical loads when the compressor engages. My next car, a ‘77 Fiat X1/9, had factory air with a tiny Italian built Tecumseh compressor that worked OK for being on only a 1300; it didn’t cool too well at idle but did fine on the highway. Funny thing, that car would run 93 mph flat out regardless of whether or not the a/c was on. The first car I had with really good a/c was a ‘79 Alfa GTV. Mine had the German Behr system with a Sankyo/Sanden compressor. IIRC that compressor was actually designed in Texas but built in Japan. It popped up in lots of places including the Peugeot and my next two X1/9s and has been retrofitted to many old cars due to its small size, smooth operation and reliability. It’s probably not as good as the old Frigidaires but those compressors are monsters best suited for large engines where they’re hard to beat.
My first car, a ‘69 Citroen ID19, did not have a/c but my second car did, a much loved ‘70 Citroen DS21 Pallas. However the DS had over 100k very hard miles when I got it and in deference to the timing chain I never used the a/c since it still had the original York compressor. Those put out well but have high cyclical loads when the compressor engages. My next car, a ‘77 Fiat X1/9, had factory air with a tiny Italian built Tecumseh compressor that worked OK for being on only a 1300; it didn’t cool too well at idle but did fine on the highway. Funny thing, that car would run 93 mph flat out regardless of whether or not the a/c was on. The first car I had with really good a/c was a ‘79 Alfa GTV. Mine had the German Behr system with a Sankyo/Sanden compressor. IIRC that compressor was actually designed in Texas but built in Japan. It popped up in lots of places including the Peugeot and my next two X1/9s and has been retrofitted to many old cars due to its small size, smooth operation and reliability. It’s probably not as good as the old Frigidaires but those compressors are monsters best suited for large engines where they’re hard to beat.
