A Brief History of Chrysler Airtemp
When Walter P. Chrysler was looking for air conditioning equipment for the new Chrysler Building (finished in 1930), his engineering background told him that contemporary equipment was both too bulky and too pricey; he enlisted the Chrysler Engineering staff and Charles Neeson to create something better, and thus was born the first fully air conditioned skyscraper along with Airtemp. One of the fruits of their efforts was a new high-speed radial compressor which was far better than the compressors then in use. With that in hand, the Airtemp Corporation was incorporated in October 1934; it built systems in a former Chrysler stamping plant in Detroit until 1936, when it moved to the former Maxwell Motor Company plant in Dayton, Ohio, at Leo and Webster. The company air conditioned Pullman cars long before air conditioners were applied to passenger cars.
Not surprisingly, Airtemp took a position of leadership in air conditioning, inventing capacity regulators (to allow compressors to work at the required load, rather than at peak) in 1937, and the first self-contained units (featuring the first sealed radial compressor) in 1938, the year Airtemp was re-absorbed back into Chrysler Corporation as a division. By 1941, Airtemp had over 500 dealers - each backed by an installation engineer - and by 1948, it employed 1,325 people in Dayton. Ironically, though, Chrysler was not the first brand to have onboard air conditioning; that honor goes to Packard, in 1940, and then to Cadillac, in 1941. Chrysler offered air conditioning in 1942, and three 1942 DeSotos with the system are known to exist, according to Collectible Automobile (February 2007 issue).
When World War II came, the Airtemp leaders went to the War Production Board and asked how they could best help; after being told there was no need for their services, Airtemp pointed out the need for air conditioning in hospitals, and refrigeration for serums, blood plasma, and other supplies. Thus, the Army ended up using Airtemp products. The company even played a role in the creation of the nuclear bomb; the diffusing operation needed to purify uranium required both air conditioning and strong filtration to provide commercial sterility (the Lynch Road plant actually made the diffusers).
At the end of the war, despite having made bomb shackles, field kitchens, and parts for guns, the Airtemp division had retained its air conditioning assembly lines.
Still, demand was high enough to justify a new post-war plant, which was finished in 1947, producing hundreds of window units, central-station condensing units, and commercial refrigeration units each month. The new plant, designed by Albert Kahn, had no windows, and was air conditioned by the company’s own equipment; it was 640 feet by 360 feet. The original plant was converted to build heating equipment, such as Aerfire (circa 1950) units; gas forced air furnaces were sold into the 1960s, and were known for their high quality.
Shortly before the new plant was finished, a new laboratory for research and development was created, Airtemp boasted that it was the most completely equipped laboratory of its kind in the industry. In production, an induction heating process cut the time for performing certain air conditioning manufacturing processes from hours to seconds; the machine hardened surfaces on the crank shafts and unloader lifter rings, while a surface a thousandth of an inch away remained unchanged.
Painting of large central station air conditioners was difficult for a time because the fumes and paint got into the painter’s face. Chrysler Airtemp engineers overcame this trouble by designing a special wing type spray booth (third from top) which drew air into the front of the booth and then forces it, along with the paint and fumes, into water.
Chrysler Airtemp’s leader in its hayday was W.C. Newberg, who rose from engineering after joining the company in 1933; Newberg had been Chief Engineer of Chrysler’s Chicago wartime operation, and would eventually take over the corporation as a whole.
Even in 1948, Chrysler Airtemp manufactured equipment from room coolers to huge central station equipment, with commercial refrigeration equipment from1/4 horsepower to 75 horsepower and marine units. The Union Pacific Building was an early installation of Airtemp central station equipment; numerous ships were also so equipped. Winter air conditioners, which doubled as forced-air heaters, were made for gas, oil, or coal.
After the war, the Airtemp division was unionized by the International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (IUE); they started as Local 768, and moved to Local 775 in 1965.
In the mid-1950s, Chrysler cars could boast the industry’s most efficient and highest capacity air conditioning (reference: Imperial Club). Mike Sealey wrote:
1953 was apparently the first year for air conditioning in Chrysler vehicles, although they almost had it eleven years earlier. The earliest Chrysler trunk mounted systems used R22. My theory is that since Chrysler's Airtemp Division made home and commercial units already, this is what they were familiar with and this is what they used. A/C units from 1957 on appear to have used R12, and were sourced from an outside supplier (Eaton, Yale, & Towne in most older models) despite use of the Airtemp name. Some 1957 MoPar owners' manuals refer to the factory A/C units as "Cartemp Air Conditioning", an apparent attempt to establish a secondary brand name for the outside-vendor-supplied car units.
The Imperial Club (their site also has an extensive a/c troubleshooting and detail page) wrote:
On the outside, air-conditioned Mopar products used flush-mounted air intake grilles instead of clumsy-looking scoops like the competition. ... Its unit took up little trunk space, and the compressor took up only one cubic foot under the hood. The condenser panel was mounted out of the way, diagonally, in front of the radiator, where it received adequate fresh air without blocking the cooling system. ...
A single switch-marked Low, Medium, and High—selected fan speed. High was capable of cooling a big DeSoto or Chrysler from 120 to 85 degrees in about two minutes, and also completely eliminated humidity, dust, pollen, and tobacco smoke. Since Airtemp relied on fresh air, drawing in 60 percent more than any other system, it avoided the staleness associated with more primitive rigs. It was also silent and unobtrusive. Instead of the awkward plastic tubes mounted on the package shelf, as on GM and other setups, Airtemp employed small ducts that directed cool air toward the ceiling of the car, the air then filtering down around the passengers instead of blowing directly at them.
Curtis Redgap noted: “Chrysler owned AirTemp, and capitalized on that by introducing air conditioning across the entire car line in 1955. Prior to that, air conditioning had been an option on the Imperial in 1952, coming in the Chrysler line in 1953. 1958 was significant because everything was now under the hood instead of having some components in the trunk.”
In 1963, Airtemp acquired Therm-O-Rite Products Ltd of Toronto, renaming it Chrysler Airtemp Canada Limited. In 1970, Airtemp moved its non-automotive manufacturing from Dayton to a new plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky (according to A. Rutky). It ran through March 19, 1976, and was then replaced by (or converted to) the factory where Corvettes have been made since 1982.
CEO John Riccardo sold Airtemp to Fedders in 1976, as the latter company expanded rapidly through acquisitions; it remains as a brand, while Fedders itself has become the largest U.S. manufacturer of room air conditioners, and has expanded rapidly into the Middle East and Asia. The company competed with Airtemp from 1947 onwards, and was more successful in mass production and sales than Airtemp had been, taking the #1 spot in 1955; ironically, Fedders also sold heaters, radiators, and radiator cores to Chrysler Corporation for automobiles in the 1950s. When the division was sold, it was no longer profitable, partly because it continued to make a full line of units, with systems reaching 1,100 tons (Airtemp had run up losses of about $35 million since 1971). The company’s focus on well-qualified dealers also hurt its market penetration, particularly in the 1960s, and Fedders and others commoditized the market for room and central air conditioning units. Despite its commanding early lead, by the late 1960s, Airtemp had been left behind.
Fedders paid $58.5 million in cash, notes, and stock, helping Chrysler’s cash-flow as it reeled from changes in customer tastes and a too-hastily designed Valiant replacement, but the company had its own problems and ended up dramatically downsizing in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Even the corporate headquarters had to be sold, but in the end, Fedders was left with a more tightly focused business, selling room air conditioners (Airtemp, Climatrol, and Fedders) made in Illinois, rotary compressors for air conditioners, made in Maryland, and replacement auto components, made in Buffalo. Corporate headquarters were moved from Edison to Peapack, New Jersey. Since the 1980s, Fedders has increasingly relied on research and production in China, purchasing numerous components and building air conditioners in China for import to the United States.
