This is the engine compartment of the ’67 Buick GS 400 circa late 2007 when I first got it; the exterior color was changed from Verde Green to Blue Mist when the body was restored. Note how the A/C equipment dominates the passenger side of the engine. Photo by author.

I like to be cool and comfortable while driving my car just as much as the next person. In fact, like many of you, I wouldn’t even consider a late-model car without factory A/C (as if you could find one). However, when it comes to ’60s and ’70s cars I’ve owned, I’ve always had mixed feelings.

I remember sweltering in the summertime in my non-A/C ’67 Chevelle back in the 1980s, and it was no picnic. However, regarding my later factory A/C cars, I can attest to the fact that the system rarely worked as it was designed to and most times not at all. It was expensive to fix and very annoying to work around under the hood. Conversely, the ’73 Grand Prix and ’75 Delta 88 my family owned when I was a kid would blow ice cubes out of those dash vents, even in August.

As fate would have it, even though factory A/C was fairly rare in muscle cars in the 1960s and early 1970s, examples equipped with it seemed to follow me home. My ’67 GTO, ’67 GS 400, ’73 Hurst Olds and ’77 Trans Am are all A/C cars.

Though I probably should be ecstatic that they all possess the potential to keep me cool on hot summer days and will increase resale value should I ever decide to sell them, I tend to think more about how many compromises and sacrifices were made to have A/C in older cars.

This view from the service manual reveals what is required to mount the compressor. Photo courtesy Buick.

GM systems of this era typically add 90 to 110 pounds to the vehicle weight, mostly over the front wheels. That extra weight can negatively affect performance, fuel mileage and front/rear weight distribution. Of course, the degrees of these effects vary with car model and powertrain choices.

Additionally, the compressor is belt-driven, which puts some drag on the engine. The underhood area becomes much more cluttered, given the compressor, brackets, large firewall-mounted A/C box and the associated wiring for the system. The condenser is mounted right in front of the radiator, which can be taxing on the cooling system, despite the fact that cooling system upgrades are generally included on A/C cars. There is added baffling up near the radiator to direct more air through the condenser and radiator, and there’s additional ducting, vacuum hoses and wiring under the dash to deliver and direct the cool air to the interior.

That’s a lot to consider for a system that may not ever be in working condition.

If I do decide to repair them, there is the added expense of purchasing all the parts, installing them and getting the system charged with R-134a, and then there’s the seasonal maintenance that follows.

My question is, is it all worth it? My definitive answer is, I don’t know.

The Goat and the Buick have vent windows, which, when open all the way, blow a ton of air right at me when driving. Is that enough to replace A/C when that air is near 90 degrees and humid?

This one shows where all the refrigerant lines go, which offers a clue as to how involved the factory system was in those days. Photo courtesy Buick.

For better or worse, I made the decision regarding the Trans Am years ago when Classic Restorations restored the body and we did a series on it in High Performance Pontiac magazine. One of the many installments was how to convert a factory A/C car to a non-A/C car. Sheetmetal was welded into the firewall where needed, since the large hole for the A/C box is a completely different shape than that used for the non-A/C heater box, and the other necessary changes were made to make the car look like it never had A/C.

Will it hurt resale? Probably. However, the T/A has been modified anyway, and I have owned it since about 1991, so I’m not too worried about it. The result looks great and it turned out to be a very popular story with the readership, since so many people were in same quandary with their older cars back in the early 2000s and values hadn’t gone through the roof yet.

I’m still on the fence with the GTO, Buick and H/O though. I’m not a fan of removing all the A/C equipment under the hood and simply leaving the giant empty A/C box in place. I lived that scenario on the T/A, and it just bothered me. However, I won’t go as far with my remaining cars as I did on the T/A, because it’s too permanent.

I could go halfway and use one some of those A/C delete cover/heater core boxes that I see advertised. This way the underhood area would look pretty much like a stock non-A/C car and I’d still have heat. In the cabin, I can probably just leave most of the A/C stuff. Of course, eagle-eyed observers will still discover the deception when comparing the underhood area to the interior, but at least it’s not as overt as a large box hanging on the firewall with nothing connected to it.

Since the new cover and box are fiberglass and are just bolted in, they can be easily removed should I ever decide to add the A/C back in. All the work is under the hood, and it’s no more difficult than what would have been required to remove, rebuild and detail the original system in the first place.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet, so that’s part of the reason why I’m discussing it. I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has been contemplating the relative merits of restoring or removing what’s left of the factory A/C system(s) in my vintage car(s). What do you think of my reasoning? Have you lived with a factory A/C car that had remnants of the old system, but it was incomplete and would require considerable cost, time and effort to get working? What did you do about it, and were you satisfied with the results?