{"id":7910,"date":"2013-12-21T07:00:06","date_gmt":"2013-12-21T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=7910"},"modified":"2013-12-23T16:16:05","modified_gmt":"2013-12-23T21:16:05","slug":"heated-seats-good-as-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2013\/12\/21\/heated-seats-good-as-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"Heated seats – good as sex?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The little glow that says: “Everything’s gonna be toasty warm real soon.” Photo: Lucy Martin<\/p><\/div>\n

Quick, when were heated seats invented? If you have that feature in your car, can you imagine living without it? Bonus Q: Are heated seats in the depths of winter cold about as good as sex?<\/p>\n

Credit writer Louise Penny for that quip. After a coming to them late, I finally finished reading (in order) all of Penny’s Inspector Gamache mysteries<\/a>. The Canadian journalist-turned-best-selling-author says natural seasons are practically characters in most of her novels, usually set in the fictional village of Three Pines, somewhere south of Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

Early in book nine (How the Light Gets In)<\/em> a character muses that heated seats in Quebec winters are about as satisfying as sex. (Or something like that. I’m a library devotee and the actual book is not currently within my reach.) You can read an excerpt here<\/a>. And if a series of nine strikes you as daunting, don’t worry. They work as stand-alones too.<\/p>\n

Penny’s not talking nonsense. When we moved to Ontario we shipped our own cars here from Hawaii. Need I say that neither one had heated seats? And that was that. Suck it up, buttercup. But a few years ago my spouse bought a newer used car which did<\/em> have heated seats.<\/p>\n

What a revelation! Call me a convert – as in “Let’s take your<\/em> car!” On a long, cold ski one of us will encourage the other by mentioning that heated seats<\/em> await!<\/p>\n

So when was that wonder of engineering invented? Well, internet lore is full of various repetitions of this assertion<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Heated seats were invented by Robert Ballard. He came up with them in 1951 with a patent issued in 1955. Ballard worked for General Motors when he invented the concept.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the well-intentioned but not always 100% right Wikipedia, the first heated seats<\/a> for regular consumers were offered by Cadillac in 1965 (for the 1966 model year).<\/p>\n

Saab is proud enough of adding heated seats in 1972 to have a page all about that<\/a>, including a video showing the heat signature of the seat. (Which wouldn’t play for me, but you may have better luck.)<\/p>\n

Do readers know more about the history behind developing and marketing heated seats?<\/p>\n

If you have heated seats, how important are they to you?<\/p>\n

Those without heated seats can do as I do – dress for polar regions when getting into the icy cold car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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