At first, separate heater and air conditioner controls were provided to operate each system. Later, they were combined into one control for ease of operation, and in 1964, General Motors' Cadillac Division introduced Comfort Control, the first system to combine the heating and air conditioning into one that automatically maintained the temperature set at the controls. Sensors determined whether heating or cooling was needed, what fan speed would be required to heat or cool the interior as quickly as possible, and whether fresh or recirculated air was necessary. Once the temperature setting was achieved, the fan would be throttled down automatically to maintain that temperature, and fresh air would be introduced if the system was in cooling mode.
Air conditioning quickly became one of the most popular options offered, so much so that in 1963 Cadillac built its 500,000th air conditioned car, and the installation rate the following year (the first for Comfort Control) hit 75 percent. The next year, in 1965, the installation rate for air conditioning in Cadillac vehicles hit 83 percent!
Other manufacturers began to offer automatic temperature controlled systems as well, with Oldsmobile and Buick getting the Comfortron system for 1966
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