Car Stereos, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

I just found this locally, while AIWA never had a big presence in the USA with 1970's car stereos, they did come back in the 80's with some high-end models but those are rare to find. This EQ can be found for sale in the EU but is non-existant over here and worse yet, I can't find any brochures showing the whole system (if there was one). Some lower tier brands were famous for their tiny 50 watt/channel EQ/amps accessories without a tape deck line but you'd think the kind of portables would have a decent car deck line.

So here's the AIWA AE-202Y Seven Band EQ, I can't find a date on the warranty card or service center list and any owner's manual is missing, This is NOS, it's never been used, the original owner got it in 1979 and held on to it waiting to build a killer car stereo but that never happened.

It looks very similar to the Marantz Version but it's about 15% smaller which is a bummer, it's about 1" narrower than a normal car stereo size. There's just one detent in the middle of the band while the Marantz had several and gives that ultra-cool clicking when moving the sliders.

Overall, it's a really nice looking EQ but it doesn't have the flashy lights like later models had. Now the hunt is one for matching components and some brochures!

 

Some of our cars had a big slot capable of three units but I'm guessing most people just didn't have room for an EQ.

 

This unit is on USA Ebay, there's only 64 listings and the rest look like late 80's. If I had to guess I'd say around 1980 give or take two years. I'm pretty sure one of the articles I posted said AIWA was making a ton of car stereos around 1974, maybe they didn't ship them here. I don't think I remember posting any early ads in the brochure section either.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/196666151063?

 

Here's a listing for a owner's manual, this unit looks like it could be from 1974. This one makes you wonder if it had other components but I doubt it, that's just the way it was back then.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/334155310484?

 

That blue band threw me off, I should have looked at the model numbers.