Francis Joseph (Josef) PERHATS
Warm Idea for Parked Autos

How would you like to have your parked car stay warm on a cold day without having to run the engine?

Frank J. Perhats, president of Arden-Mark Inc. in Barrington, Ill., has developed a system which he says makes this possible. Perhats, who also heads a sales engineers firm, has been inventing auto-related items for years but this is the first system that he really hopes to score with.

"We're confining sales of the system, called Autotherm, to fleets and new-car dealerships," Perhats said. "We've sold it to a number of police departments, and it's even on cabs in Sweden, where it's illegal to idle a car for more than two minutes.

"The general public must wait, because we're only geared to make 50,000 systems next year. And we don't want amateurs botching its installation and hurting ist reputation although it's not difficult to install.

Running a car's engine to keep warm with the heater results in wasted gasoline, the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning, engine wear, contamination of engine oil, and overheating of catalytic converters.

But many motorists, including housewives waiting for kids or husbands, cab drivers, policemen, or salesmen, often must run the engine to stay warm.

The special system continues circulation of hot water through the vehicle heater as if the engine were running but with it turned off.

The average American V-8 auto will stay warm for 1 1/ 4 hours when it is 32 degrees outside, according to claims. A small, four-cylinder engined car stays warm about 30 to 45 mintes, while a large car with a 400-plus cubic inch motor will stay warm about three hours.

When it's 15 degrees below outside, Perhats said the average American V-8 will stay warm for about 30 minutes, the four cylinder about 10 minutes and the large V-8 about one hour.

"This shows the residual heat energy available in the vehicle's engine cooling system," he said.

Perhats said his system doesn't run the battery down because its pump consumes less than one ampere of current and shuts off when the water is unable to heat the interior.

The cost is about $60, plus installation.


Sunday World-Herald
Omaha, Nebraska
December 4, 1977

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