VINTAGE THERMADOR EVAPORATIVE CAR WINDOW SWAMP COOLER

I have always wondered how well these work. Does anyone have one???

Had a swamp cooler for the whole house in Colorado. I was wondering the same thing....

How does it work? From the description you add water to it but how is it to work? confused here

My Parents bought one when the bought their New 1948 pontiac- they mount to the side window glass on a metal (rubber or felt) track made on it. Water goes into the tank and as you drive the air enters the cooler(like a ram air effect) and water is attracted up & into the Media inside it( like a course Horse hair??) and the ram air flows thru the media and into the car. The window is rolled up to secure the track at the upper window felt areas. and there is an arm that is outside that secures the weight of the cooler into the outer lower window area. arm is adjustable. This thing at 40+ MPH will Freeze your brain- if you are sitting next to it. The lower the humidity outside - is best- although we lived in south central Texas -San Antonio area and it worked great . I sole the old car and still have this Theramadore cooler- painted to match my 56 chev PU. Still use it in the summers when Hot!! I even bought a new Decal for it on ebay. Manfacturers Decal.

Thanks for the info. Never had seen anything like it and would not of known how to do with it if I had. always nice to learn something new.

There were some nice ones on ebay - within the last few weeks - yet get prime $$ for them-- the one now shown is an older model & I velieve is missing an arm??

I've seen many over the years and always wondered if they worked as well as the house swamp coolers we've had over the years. They work on the "Evaporation cooling" principle. Never really wanted something that size hanging out one of my windows and was thinking if you could adapt it to a roof vent it would be cool....

Dan

Only bad thing about those - the water needs refilling when u r going highway speeds=yet u can open & close the cooling output of them- although at 90+F and 60+ MPH ull want to leave it open- just got to get the wifeee= to get used to having that Radiator Water Bag around her neck- so she can fill it 4 Ya!!

I was thinking you could use a 5 gal. reservoir and some kind of check-valve...

DanTheVanMan wrote:Never really wanted something that size hanging out one of my windows and was thinking if you could adapt it to a roof vent it would be cool....

In Australia and South America it's not so unusual to find roof-mounted swamp-coolers. I have even seen some Volkswagen station-wagons fitted with them, altough they don't have a roof hatch from factory like many big rigs do.







This one looks more like a residential swamp-cooler, and some have a built-in tank for the water while others have it mounted separately from the evaporative module.



That's how the air diffusers and the control panel look from the inside (took this picture inside a Brazilian military ambulance)

Those window swamp coolers are prime Nostalga items - mine will actually freeze the side of your head @ highway speeds!!  Best if used in a car to mount in a rear window or a slider window in a van. Yes they will cause you to use more gas on the trips =yet remember when these were prime items in the late 1040's we paid only 20 cents a gallon!!   

They are so rad. I would LOVE to get one some day, JUST for my A van of awesomness!