Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Listed as 20's to 30's vintage. Anyone know when they were first introduced in US cars?

My '32 has vacuum, curious when the switch over to electric occurred.

ebay.com/itm/235730317088?_nkw=owen

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  Owen Dyneto Electric Windshield Wiper Motor.jpg (289.83 KB)

A woman inventor patented the first crude hand operated mechanical wiper in 1903. There is a website with an article on the history of wipers and they say the first electric wiper was credited to and patented by another woman inventor in 1917. That part is covered in the paragraph entitled Further improvements to Windshield Wipers. I didn't see a firm date on when they were first installed on a car and would presume that patent dates in some cases might be granted a bit after the actual first use. Unless the issue of "not invented by one of our own engineers" didn't happen to keep it off a car then maybe mid teens would be a decent guess for a time frame .

Unfortunately the long eBay link made this impossible to read without scrolling back and forth! PLEASE use the Link button and paste in your links there.