The Crotch Vent: Cars That Air-Condition Your Lap

Connor asked us a simple question: how many cars have a gooch vent? The honest answer is that nobody knows, and anybody who gives you a precise number is making it up. Here's what we can tell you.

What we mean by a crotch vent

The Drive describes it nicely: an HVAC outlet placed under the steering column, which you can aim straight between your legs on a hot day. It isn't a footwell vent, which blows at your ankles. It isn't a seat cooler either. It's a real dash vent, with louvers, aimed at your lap.

According to CarBuzz, the feature's golden age was the 1990s. CarBuzz also blames the same decade for killing it: dual front airbags became mandatory in the US for 1998, and knee airbags soon started taking up the space under the column where the vent used to live.

The verified list

We only counted a car if a published source, or owners describing their own car, clearly says it had one. That gave us nine. It's a count of what we could verify, not of every car ever built with one. Plenty of other cars certainly had them; we just couldn't prove it to our own standard.

Two caveats. "Full-size Chevy trucks" and "Dodge Caravan" cover several model years, and our sources don't say exactly which ones. The LS 430 entry rests on owners talking about their own cars, not on a review, so it's the weakest of the nine.

The modern survivor

The surprise on the list is the Mitsubishi Xforce, reviewed by the Philippine site Visor. Its reviewer mentioned the crotch vent in the same breath as a little tray under the passenger seat. It's the only car on our list you can walk into a showroom and buy new today, depending on where you live.

The one that's only a promise

In 2026, The Drive and CarBuzz both covered REO Industries, a startup planning a $21,500 gas-powered pickup called the Runabout, and the company has teased a crotch vent. CarBuzz says first deliveries are expected in late 2028 or 2029. Until one exists, it doesn't make our list. We want to believe, though.

Close, but not a crotch vent

The Mazda CX-90 has vents aimed at your knees in a different way: The Autopian reports that the vents at the outer corners of the dash jut out far enough that people bash their knees on them getting in. That's a knee vent in the worst possible sense, so it doesn't count.

And the aftermarket keeps trying. The Drive covered the "Jewel Cooler," a YouTube creation that clips onto an existing vent in a Ford Bronco and runs a tube up the leg of your shorts. We salute the engineering. We won't be explaining it to anyone in a parking lot.

So, how many cars have one?

Nine that we could verify, out of an unknowable total. If your car has one and you can show us (a photo, or a page from the owner's manual), send it to the tip line and we'll add it to the list.