wonderful

Hello Folks,
Did GM ever produce a 65 fuelie with air conditioning?
I heard this some where's, is this true?
All replies will appreciated.
Richard

Nowhere Man

No!

65hihp

Yes!







can we get a Maybe!


he said he wanted all replies.


maybe a poll would be worthwhile?

Nowhere Man

oh come on don't confuse the poor boy. the pages of his references books must be stuck shut

sub006

Maybe for Bill Mitchell or another GM exec, remember the C2 coupe with a second instrument panel on the passenger side!

Nowhere Man

Tell me this where would you mount the alternator and air cleaner. Remember what was in the parts box back in the 60's

Rich Yanulis

Aftermarket A/C.........not my car, but I think it looks good

Nowhere Man

That belt and bracket system was not around in the 60's. My comment still stands. And no offense but you can keep that system. Give me a 65 fuelie any day of the week.

JohnZ

nope.

wonderful

Good! Now I can rest easy. Thanks.

Texaspilot180

Rich - that's a photo of my 65 FI coupe with Vintage Air added while still keeping the original air cleaner in place. No factory AC available as an option on FI cars, simply no place to put the big AC compressor of the day and alternator with the FI only front draw air cleaner assembly. I used billet aluminum brackets and a mini alternator to get everything in close and still use the original air cleaner. Took some trial and error and extra effort but well worth it to have AC in the coupe in the hot Texas summer. It can be done, but neither the factory or the dealer at that time offered AC on an FI car, it just wasn't available. Jeff.

Zoomin

Was air available with any solid lifter engine?

Bowlerdude

Yes.

Texaspilot180

Yes. I don't believe it was a solid lifter limitation, with the FI cars it was just no available space for the big AC compressor of the day with the large FI specific canister air cleaner on the left side of the engine. Simply no place to put the parts needed for AC so it was never offered. However other HP engines with solid lifters I believe could get AC as they didn't have that big air cleaner like the FI cars had.

Nowhere Man

Only in 64-65 you could get AC with solid lifters SB. it wasn't until 72 it was offered again. But that was very short lived.

rfn026

I grew up in Flint Mi during the '60s. If you were high enough on the totem pole in GM you could get anything you wanted. A lot of very strange cars came out of the St. Louis plant. Today NCRS doesn't recognize them.

My favorite was my buddy's solid lifter F! car with a PG transmission. Dad said he couldn't drive a 4-speed worth a sh*t so he had this car made up for summer use.

Richard Newton

JohnZ

I worked at the Chevrolet Pilot Line on Van Slyke Rd. in Flint (and at Flint V-8, just down the street) in the 60's (and at St. Louis-Corvette in '67-'68), and most of those stories are pure bunk or major embellishments; the Corvette plant didn't get involved in experimental or "oddball" back-door builds - that stuff was handled at Engineering (I worked there too in '66-'67, in the Corvette Group, and saw lots of that stuff).

It took a 110% effort every day at St. Louis just to get the seven units per hour scheduled - they didn't have the time or the resources to do anything else - it wasn't a "custom shop" - it was an assembly plant.

MikeM

You guys just didn't have any sense of humor.

We ran Ranger trucks at 85 jph down the final line. Engineering sent a Jack Roush built Ranger prototype in the plant for our review. It had a turbocharged Mustang SVO engine in it with a five speed manual. We'd never built a turbo engine or a five speed.

An hour after the truck rolled out of the hauler, I had it's component parts scattered around the plant. Chassis on the frame line. Engine torn down and awaiting rebuild on the engine dress line and cab/box sitting at engine deck.

An hour later, the truck had been scheduled into regular production and came back down the line and it got put back together and in running condition with no production disruption.

Did the same thing with the very first Bronco II that was built. We had built a couple of proto bodies in white in the body shop tooling. I managed to get an engine buck from engineering along with a frame. I scheduled the thing into production and brought it down the line, no problem. It was a V-6 and a 4X4. At that point in time, the plant had yet to build either one in the Ranger configuration so it was all new. It was short an exhaust system as no parts had been released for it yet, even as prototype. When it came off line, several of us drove it around the plant, blowing the horn and waving at the guys that put it together.

Guess you couldn't get away with this in a GM plant?



PS. Good thing we built the unauthorized Bronco II ahead of launch as it exposed a design error in one of the main wiring looms that would have set back Job 1.

65hihp

People paid $500+ for the FI option to go fast. How many of them would want to bog their car down with an A/C system too?
In the mid 60s, you put your windows down to have "air conditioning".

MikeM

No, you turned on your astro ventilation (and thought you were cool as h....) and left the windows up, never mind it really didn't work all that well!