The Goldberg Brothers - The Inventors of the Automobile Air Conditioner
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The four Goldberg brothers, Lowell, Norman, Hiram,
and Max, 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 120 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, '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.
