Why glove compartment

This little drawer is the secret of the dainty motoriste. Seriously, read Levitt's book. It's amazing. Eventually the need to wear driving gloves dissipated, and the glove compartment evolved. Perhaps the most awesomely unusable idea ever to find its way into a production car, Cadillac included a glovebox-sized cocktail set with its Eldorado Brougham. Granted, the car was considerably more expensive than even a Rolls-Royce of the day, but it's still amazing. When Dodge unveiled the "Chill Zone" in , it seemed The premise was that it could hold soft drinks and keep them reasonably cool -- and while the car is on, sure, the cans stay chilled.

Turn it off, and so goes the refrigeration. In the summer that meant a lot of exploded cans. Today, some cars have an audio-in jack, or even a USB port, but other than that, it's still largely Some cars have multiple, most still have one, but nearly every glove compartment today has one thing in common: it will probably never store a glove. Want more of the world's best Cars delivered straight to your inbox? Click here to sign up for our daily email.

Cars back then, and for some time into the s, did not have roofs. Driving a car was an elemental affair. You were going to experience the elements at brisk speeds.

To make sure your gloves and whatever else you put in the storage box of your Packard stayed dry, they sealed it from splashes and rain. Other manufacturers put drawers under seats or inconspicuous places where one could store a pair of gloves. In the late 30s, manufacturers developed the first heating systems, but driving gloves stayed in fashion long after we stopped needing them.

For a time, we had gloves and climate controls. Posh, eh? In the early days of the automobile the use of gloves was considered essential, not only as a style statement for the discriminating, often wealthy driver wearing a pair of white, gauntlet gloves, but also for utility reasons to keep the hands warm. Many early automobiles didn't come with heaters, and driver and occupants were forced to dawn heavy gloves to protect their hands. The glove box, sometimes referred to as the glove compartment, is a sealed, or unsealed container inside an automobile used for storage.

Most modern cars have sealed glove boxes, but the Jeep Wrangler, for example, even in recent models, have glove boxes, or portions of the box that do not have a door. There's not a lot of printed information available to show when the first glove boxes were included in automobiles, or even which makes and models had them.

It is clear, however, the reason for having a glove box in your car. Many early vehicles did not have enclosed cabs and driving to church with the family on those cold Sunday mornings required everyone to wear a pair of gloves. It just makes sense to keep the gloves in a special compartment in the car so they would always be handy.