Earlier I tried to pin down the start dates for electric windshield wipers, after seeing that the conventional wisdom about AMC was wrong. The earliest factory-installed electric wipers were Chrysler in 1939, then Packard in ’42, then Ford and GM and Studebaker around ’51. In each case the wipers were optional on top models at first then gradually moved down the hierarchy. By 1960 all of the Big Three were electric. Nash/AMC started optional in ’64, then standard in ’73. Hudson never got electrics before the merger, and the brand was gone long before AMC went electric. [Later, found out that Hudson had optional electric wipers in ’34, possibly ’28, but gave them up before the war.]
Today American Radio Library added a 1929 catalog of radio supplies from Barawik in Chicago, including some appliances and electrical equipment for cars.
Aftermarket vacuum and electric wipers in 1929:
The prices were about the same for vacuum and electric, so cost wasn’t the reason for slow adoption by the manufacturers. Maybe buyers were simply happy enough with vacuum. I had vacuum wipers on a ’50 Willys pickup, and I liked the analog variable control and the ‘natural intermittent’ feature. Contrary to conventional wisdom they didn’t slow down much when I accelerated, certainly never stopped.
As far as I can tell, Willys didn’t go electric until ’73 when it was part of AMC. Military Jeeps were electric after ’51, but Willys didn’t transfer its own military skills and parts to its civilian products.
[Note that ‘automatic’ in 1929 simply meant the wipers had a motor, whether vacuum or electric. The first wipers were hand-cranked.]
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Later, got proof that AMC started optional in ’64, which wasn’t clear from the book. This Rambler sales training film brags about the optional variable electric wipers. Rheostat control wasn’t common; DeSoto and Chrysler had it in the ’50s but most were one speed or two speed. The variable control made electrics equal to vacuum in usability.
Polistra's Mill 