1966 Ford Eight-Track Player
Flipping through Car And Driver, I came across an article that made me stop and think… do you remember the days before satellite radio or MP3s?
Ask many 20-something drivers about cassette tapes and most won’t have a clue what you’re talking about, much less eight-track tapes. Over the past 80 years, the way car tunes have been delivered have come and gone, but no matter the road we travel, one things is for sure… we all want traveling music.
1930: First Commercially Installed Radio
According to Car And Driver, the Galvin brothers’ expensive $130 unit was the first commercially successful car radio, and the first product to wear the Motorola name.
1952: First FM Radio
AM was king of the airwaves in the ’50s, but that didn’t stop Blaupunkt from introducing FM radio.
1953: Enters Becker Mexico
Becker’s iconic Mexico radio launched this year, arguably the first premium in-car radio. It had AM/FM and the first fully automatic station-search button.
1955: First “Music On Demand”
Starting in ’55, Chrysler offered a small turntable in its high-end cars, playing proprietary seven-inch records with about 45 minutes of music. Can you guess how well that went over? Maybe it just skipped over… and over… and over.
1963: First All-Transistor Radio
A number of manufacturers introduced transistors to their aftermarket car radios in the early ’60s, but Becker’s Monte Carlo was the first to be fully “solid state”—no vacuum tubes.
1965: First Eight-Track Player
Predecessor to the cassette, the eight-track was a loser from the start and was dead by the early ’80s. Ford and Motorola jointly introduced in-car eight-track players this year.
1969: First Stereo
Becker’s Europa was the first in-car stereo setup, with the tuner amplifying two channels instead of one.
1970–1977: Cassette-Tape Players
The rollout of cassettes allowed for one of mankind’s greatest achievements: the mix tape. This development also heralded the creation of branded aftermarket cassette-tape players from Alpine and Pioneer, among others.
1982: Bose First Premium System
Bose and GM’s Delco teamed up to offer the first “designer” stereo system. Bose sank money into car-specific development; rather than just producing an expensive head unit, it was marketing the entire system to Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac shoppers.
1985: First In-Dash CD Player
While Sony had introduced an in-dash player the previous year, Becker’s Mexico Compact Disc was the first to be factory installed.
