Back To The Teens

Block heater... You used to be able to get either an electic heater that replaced the dipstick or a cartridge heater that was spliced into one of the coolant lines. Whitney carried them.

In the words of Garison Keillor - ...living in Minnesota and just having had enough of the cold winters, he was going to get on the interstate heading South and was not going to stop until someone asked what the electric plug coming out of the engine compartment was for...."

Used to have them that replaced a freeze-out plug too...

Little known fact - the freeze out plugs are actually there as a means to externally hold the sand casting forms which make the internal cooling passage spaces when the block is cast. Once solidified, the sand/wax is removed by steam cleaning, the access hole is machined (along with the machining and boring of the entire block) and the freeze out plug installed. Saturn had a process called the 'lost foam' (similar to 'lost wax' casting process) that I didn't entirely understand. Lost foam was supposed to be an alternate to sand casting that the rest of the industry uses.