Miss wing vents?

[Eric]

I do!

In the '60s and earlier, it was common for cars to have wing vent windows you could open and cant outward to direct airflow into the car. This made it doable to go without expensive AC. In addition to the money you saved up front, the car was a lot lighter (AC adds as much as 100 pounds to the weight of the car) and so performed better and got better gas mileage, too.

Beginning in the late '60s, wing vent windows began to go away.

By the '80s, they disappeared completely.

Without them, AC is almost a must-have feature. I suspect that wing vents were eliminated in part for just that reason - to push people into buying AC, which is now a de facto standard in almost every new car made...

[grouch]

I do!

In the '60s and earlier, it was common for cars to have wing vent windows you could open and cant outward to direct airflow into the car. This made it doable to go without expensive AC. In addition to the money you saved up front, the car was a lot lighter (AC adds as much as 100 pounds to the weight of the car) and so performed better and got better gas mileage, too.

Beginning in the late '60s, wing vent windows began to go away.

By the '80s, they disappeared completely.

Without them, AC is almost a must-have feature. I suspect that wing vents were eliminated in part for just that reason - to push people into buying AC, which is now a de facto standard in almost every new car made...

I sure miss them. They were eased out because without them it made for a sleeker look and was easier to engineer. The framing and such is pretty complex and costs a lot to engineer so that it works seamlessly. I liked them because you could open it a little and get the air sucked out in the winter and incoming air was dramn through the heater core. It also gave some breeze in the rain without soaking the driver. Flip it around and you've got a wind scoop. The last vehicle I know of that had thgem was the '93 Dodge full size pickup and Ramcharger. Even there, some had them deleted.

[Eric]

I sure miss them. They were eased out because without them it made for a sleeker look and was easier to engineer. The framing and such is pretty complex and costs a lot to engineer so that it works seamlessly. I liked them because you could open it a little and get the air sucked out in the winter and incoming air was dramn through the heater core. It also gave some breeze in the rain without soaking the driver. Flip it around and you've got a wind scoop. The last vehicle I know of that had thgem was the '93 Dodge full size pickup and Ramcharger. Even there, some had them deleted.

I used to own a Corvair, which of course had them. They - along with flow-through vents inside the car - kept it very livable in the car unless you were stuck on heavy traffic on a hot day and barely moving at all.

I like simple functionality, though - and so I miss 'em!

[J. ZIMM]

If you look through the Years of Automotive Design, you will see some cars with, and some without Wing Windows. One Year may have them, the next year, not. But, yes I do miss them. The only car I have left that has them, is my Falcon. Wing Windows were used up till 1997, on the Ford F-250. 1996 on the F-150. It's cheaper for the Auto Industry not to have to design and install Wing Windows. Maybe, someday, we may see some thing like them come back. By then, it will be something "NEW" that the ' New Generation' has never seen. "Gosh, that's something new." I still believe there is nothing new in the Automotive Field that hasn't been done before, with the exception of the computer. And I'm not too sure that hasn't been tried before.