Garza 🇪🇸

Garza is a Spanish brand of electric heating that in the early ’70s ventured into domestic air conditioning and sold it with one of the most ingenious ads of the era. The company was known for its radiators: in collecting circles there is an advertisement for Garza electric radiators from 1967, a catalog of the Wasser‑Öl oil radiator from 1969 and advertising for the Consul model from the ’70s, in addition to surviving 125‑volt units. With that base in appliance stores, in 1972 it launched the “Garza air conditioners” with a magazine ad that sold family benefits — receiving “daily pleasant visits,” that “the children live in a purer atmosphere,” that the family has a good time at home — and in 1973 the one that made it memorable: “What appliance can I buy for 15,000 pesetas?” The photo shows a television, a washing machine, a small refrigerator and a window unit, with the answer “…or a whole Garza air conditioner. Garza air conditioner: the 15,000 pesetas best spent (in appliance sales).

The advertisement is a first‑rate price list: 15,000 pesetas in 1973 was, according to the photo itself, the price of a television or a washing machine, and a little more than the 13,975 of the Westinghouse Custom from 1969 or the 11,990 of the basic Fedders. And the tag line “de venta en electrodomésticos” marks the channel: Garza did not sell through installers, but through stores, like Crolls or Kelvinator.

We have found no documentation on the manufacturing company — or whether the Garza window unit was made in‑house or by a third party with its label. The Garza appliances from the ’70s that appear on the second‑hand market are almost always radiators; a window air conditioner bearing the brand would be a rarity.

Four pieces on todocoleccion: “Garza air‑conditioning advertising announcement” (original from 1972, magazine page measuring 18.5 × 14 cm), “Garza air‑conditioning information advertising announcement (1972)”, “Garza air‑conditioner advertising sheet, 1973” (with the question “What appliance can I buy for 15,000 pesetas?” and the answer “the 15,000 pesetas best spent, on appliances for sale”) and “Garza air‑conditioning unit 15 000 pesetas advertisement, 1970s advertising”. The blog Recordando la publicidad summarizes the text of the 1972 advertisement (pleasant visits, purer atmosphere for children). The heating activity appears in the Garza electric radiators advertisement of 1967 and the Wasser‑Öl radiator catalogue of 1969, also on todocoleccion.

The 1973 advertisement is the best relative price document we have found for Spanish air conditioning of the 70s: by comparing the conditioner with a television, an automatic washing machine and a small refrigerator, it places the window unit in the same spending category as the rest of white goods, and not in the luxury one. Compared with the 18.571 pesetas of the York from 1957 —when the average salary was a fraction of that in 1973—, it shows how much air conditioning had become cheaper in sixteen years. The photo shows a compact front‑grille window unit, without a wooden front, more sober than the American ones of the same period.

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us.