Post by Groundhog66 on Jun 18, 2013 8:51:45 GMT -8
1946 Ford
Have you ever heard of the Goldberg Brothers ...
The Inventors of the Automobile Air Conditioner?
Here's a little factoid for automotive buffs just to dazzle your friends.
The four Goldberg brothers, Lowell, Norman, Hiram, and Maxwell,
invented and developed the first automobile air conditioner.
On July 17, 1946, the temperature in Detroit was 97 degrees.
The four brothers walked into old man Henry Ford's office
and sweet-talked his secretary into telling him
that four gentlemen were there
with the most exciting innovation in the auto industry
since the electric starter.
Henry was curious
and invited them into his office.
They refused and instead asked
that he come out to the parking lot to their car.
They persuaded him to get into the car, which was about 130 degrees,
turned on the air conditioner,
and cooled the car off immediately.
The old man got very excited and invited them back to the office,
where he offered them $3 million for the patent.
The brothers refused, saying they would settle for $2 million,
but they wanted the recognition by having a label which was to read
'The Goldberg Air-Conditioner'
on the dashboard of each car in which it was installed.
Now old man Ford was more than just a little anti-Semitic,
and there was no way he was going to put the Goldberg's name
on two million Fords.
They haggled back and forth for about two hours and finally agreed on $4 million
and that just their first names would be shown.
And
so
to
this
day,
all
Ford
air
conditioners
show
Lo, Norm, Hi, and Max
on the controls.
I can hear your groans from here.
Control yourself!!!
I fell for it, too!
