Back in the day, I remember cars having little triangular venting windows you could pop open for when you wanted some air in the car but didn’t want the wind from opening the main window. Is there a particular reason those were phased out? It just occurred to me today that I miss those.
I think half-light windows (I believe that was their name) existed because the main part of the window pretty much had to be rectangular in order to roll up and down within its frame - or at least, everything was designed that way - whether by necessity of materials or just convention or lack of imagination.
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Otherwise agree, production methods, reigning technology and budget.
The floor vents on the side that opened up in the same vehicles put those windows to shame. 20 bajillion cubic feet of air per minute blasting in by your feet. This is what I miss for ventilation.
Those windows made a lot of noise and I think that’s a big strike against them in the modern car. They did swing out and act as a scope to bring in the air though.
quarter lights - right you are.
Hmmm. I just called them “vent windows”. The ones on my VW Beetle could be used to open the door if you locked your keys in - a few pushes on the vent window made the latch pop open, and you could reach in through it to the door handle. Many more people smoked in those days, too. They often functioned as the butt disposal.
My 1995 F350 has them - does that make my truck old?
Being produced 15 years ago makes it old.
Great. Now you hurt it’s feelings…
Those older cars were built for cigarette smokers.
That is what the vent windows were for, to suck out the smoke without rolling the whole window down.
Everyone smoked. It was a given. See Mad Men.
I’ve known a lot of miata drivers (myself included) who are annoyed that the quarter lights on miatas are fixed in place. It seems it would be really easy to include the hinge, but nope–they don’t move.
We called those ‘no-draft’ windows when I was a kid.
When most cars didn’t have air conditioning, vent windows and floor vents kept you cool. With air conditioning, people wanted to keep their windows closed. Since they weren’t needed after AC became standard equipment, they were removed. Vent windows tended to leak and even when close, created wind noise. Plus, there’s the weight and complexity that added to the cost. I remember that GM had window cranks to open and close their vent windows.
We called them wing windows. Flow through ventilation and the popularity of air conditioning made them obsolete.
They were also convienient for car prowlers because you could either jimmy 'em open like in the old VW’s or else just smashing a little vent window made a lot less noise than smashing a big window.
The 1979 Bronco I learned to drive in had them. I miss them…if you threw a butt out of a quarter light you knew it wasn’t going to fly back in and possibly cause a fire in the back seat.
ETA: Of course, with our modern sensibilities, we’d never throw butts out a car window NOW*…
*Standard disclaimers apply. Void where prohibited.
Wind wings was the name I heard. I imagine they were a drag on fuel economy.
I’ve always heard them referred to as vent windows. The ones on my dad’s 1990 Suburban opened with some kind of lever; I always had trouble with them. Interestingly, all the other windows in the vehicle were power windows.
No they didn’t.
Despite what the tobacco industry (and you, apparently) want people to think, there was never a time that even as much as half the adults in this country smoked. Smoking peaked in the late 1950’s at around 40-42% of the adult population. It’s now dropped to about 20%, only 1 in 5 adults. Even in Europe, which people say is filled with smokers, it’s still only about 48% of adults smoking – still under half.
They also allowed you to have some ventilation without letting the rain in.