HEPA cabin filter

[zoomcat]

My wife has significant allergies, and cabin filters in our modern cars have been quite helpful.
Has anyone tried to retrofit some kind of HEPA ventilation in any air cooled cars?

[APPLEGREENVW]

[baldessariclan]

Fitting cabin air filter(s) would be somewhat difficult at best IMO, since the air comes in from a several different places:

Heating and defrosting air comes from the engine's cooling fan, and blows in at the foot and defroster vents.

Then there is usually a "fresh air" box in the trunk (w/ air coming in from the slots in hood close to windshield) which feeds the defroster and dash vents as well.

And finally, while the cabin is fairly "airtight" in some ways, it becomes bit of a "lower pressure area" when the car is cruising along, and thus some air commonly leaks in at any gaps present around radio/dash area, door release handles & window cranks, and etc.
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1971 Standard Beetle — fairly stock / driver

baldessariclan -- often in error, never in doubt...

[viiking]

Compared to modern cars the air flow/ventilation of VW's is abysmal. Perhaps with a helper fan it gets mediocre.

I think even if you get the car relatively airtight, trying to push incoming fresh air through a HEPA filter will be difficult due to the restriction that the HEPA imposes just by its nature to filter out tiny particles. New cars can overcome this will high velocity air fans that can deal with some excess of back pressure from the HEPA filter.
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1968 1500 RHD Lotus White Beetle since birth. In the hospital for major surgery
1966 Lancia Flavia Pininfarina Coupe - in the waiting room
Discharged: 1983 Vanagon, 1974 1800 Microbus,1968 Low Light,1968 Type 3

[baldessariclan]

In all fairness, these cars are from back in the era where if you wanted ventilation and/or cooling, you just rolled down the windows. And everybody was smoking too, so even those little vent windows got used a lot, as I recall - they worked great for sucking cigarette smoke out of the cabin!
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1971 Standard Beetle — fairly stock / driver

baldessariclan -- often in error, never in doubt...

[lboos]

Every bug I have owned always smell like gas or exh. fumes. not much you can do about it.

I agree with baldessariclan's comment.