My next aspiration after collecting personal players and boomboxes, is old school car stereo system. Some of my favorite car stereo brands namely Alpine, Kenwood, Clarion and Pioneer. I started off with a recent purchase of an Audiovox pre-amp 7 band graphic equalizer.
There are several vintage units in the pipeline and these are high end units but of course I didn't pay for a hefty price, I managed to get a good bargain. This time I will fix it in my car, please hang on for my next chapter. I can't wait to see the colourful level meter dancing, turning my car into the 80's taste ..
I love car audio, i have an alpine deck with dolby c and a couple of car eq's cant wait for the next instalment ken80's
Here you go on my next chapter. http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/alpine-vintage-car-stereo.5779/#post-42973
No Alpine kit in the Argos catalogues but I did find a few Car MiniDisc players in the 2000 catalogue
Sorting through some old magazines I found a 1996 Radio Times (kept for a feature on Star trek) with this advert in it Car Audio was big money back then especially when compared to the cost of the cars
Great ads Longman, cassette player still widely available at that time until millenium where slowly took over by CD player.
Yes slowly. My wife's previous car, a 2005 Ford Ka still had a factory fitted Radio Cassette, with one of those curved fascias to match the dashboard. Looking on ebay there are Radio CDs for the same model. I guess those only got fitted to the top of the range models like the one Kylie advertised https://driventowrite.com/2018/01/23/2004-ford-streetka-kylie-convertible-design-profile/
Nice Ken As you say Longman, car audio was as cutting edge and pricey then as phones are now. I bought the Clarion Compo-G System back in 82/83 and probably cried at what it cost. If you can believe this, I fitted it into a Renault 5 Gordini (Alpine in non UK markets), which entailed me removing the entire centre console and fabricating a custom frame and console specifically for it, probably weighed as much as the 5. Later it was moved into my Rover SD1 3.5 custom (something of a galactic shift in vehicles) where I had to do the same but it was worth it, not just the sound but those green backlit displays were just I wish I could remember what I did with it as I don't remember selling it. I've got these catalogues if anyone is interested
great love all the car audio guys but 1000 for a phone no chance, drop it and into the bin it goes lol
Following from your original post Ken, I thought this might be of relevant interest, from a JVC fold out poster / brochure thingy covering an assortment of their wares, about 1981 ish I think.
It looks a bit newer than that to me. To put some prices to the pictures this was from the Littlewoods 1986 catalogue According to the Bank Of England's inaccurate inflation calculator multiply the prices by three to get 2019 prices, so you are right in your comparison with Phones. Of course a mobile phone was about £3000 back then. As it's the 35th anniversary of Live Aid I've just watch a recording of "That's so 1985".
You could well be right, I was basing my date guess on what I was doing but that's all getting a bit hazy as well. I do remember, but not the date, paying nearly £1000 for a used Motorola 6000 series "Car" phone which could also be plugged into a hand portable brick about the same size as my Land Rover battery. I bought it so that I could keep in touch with friends when I was staying in the Highlands (I still needed a 5m mast). One day just two weeks into my leave the phone rang and I picked it up without thinking as only about 10 fiends and family knew I had a phone and what the number was, unfortunately it was my head office "we've had an emergency in Jakarta and need you to go out immediately". I removed the Motorola before I got on the plane and had a friend sell it, never did find out how they got my number. Back on track, by odd coincidence I think I actually had that JVC PZ565 in the Rangie at the time.
That is a great (and historic) story. That sounds like late 1980s. Nowadays they would give you an Iridium phone so they could contact you even at the North Pole . In 1982 or 1983 a girlfriend who worked part time in a convenience store said someone had left a phone like you described on the counter. Maybe he worked for the same company . Even then she thought it was quite old fashioned despite being way outside of the price range of 95% of the population. In the 1986 to 1991 TV Series bread one of the ongoing jokes was that unemployed Joey could afford a mobile phone that he would whip out of his pocket. All this talk of historic mobile communications made me do a little research into this Back in about 1980 someone I knew, who was a keen CBer, also had this system in his car for his small business. Finally, for anyone with half an hour to spare, this is the musical, cassette promo version.
I had that Pioneer radio in my first car, one of only 2 car radios I've actually bought brand new, all the others were got from mates who were upgrading. I love tinkering with car hifi, had quite a few decent systems in my cars over the years. Nova - Pioneer cassette head unit, alpine front components, alpine 6x9s, Kenwood 10'' sub, longmill amp Polo - Sony/Pioneer head units, kenwood dash speakers, alpine door speakers, infinity and alpine 6x9s, 2x jbl 10" subs in a bandpass box, 2x kenwood amps Lupo - Sony/Pioneer head units (currently Pioneer double din), alpine front components, JBL rear components, JL Audio sub (needs refoaming so currently using an Alpine 10'' sub in a birchwood ply box), Pro-Plus class D amp My other 2 cars (both VW Ups!) have the OE headunit, in my silver one I have the upgraded Fender speakers and a Kenwood underseat sub. My Up GTI has the Beats system so not going to mess with it too much, sounds pretty good anyway. The first car I ever heard a sub in was a mates Citroen BX, when he used to take me home from work he blasted it and it sounded so clean and crisp. That got me hooked and they have been a staple of every car install I've ever made.
BX great machine but typical Citroen barminess, the head unit was tucked right at the bottom of the dash almost out of reach never mind eyeline, not quite as bad as the Citroen GS where they placed the head unit length ways in the centre console way back under your elbow next to the ride height control lever, MAD. At least there was some scope and space for fitting systems on those cars, now you really struggle for any space if you don't want to eat into the boot volume. This was the unit I had, not any smaller as a portable.
I just found a great five part series on the history of car audio https://www.hagerty.com/media/search?s=rob+siegel+obsolete+car
The car stereos are so nice looking, I've run across hundreds of ads and articles in my research but I have to keep focused, it's too easy to go on tangents with all of the cool vintage stuff, otherwise I'd be posting more of those. I do have a few vintage auto audio items myself but that was something that really disappeared over here, I think most got tossed when people realized that newer cars wouldn't accept them, everyone I talk to had a great system but they are long gone. Those big phones really took off here in the mid-80's, the phone was something like $100 USD but you had to buy a two year contract, that was something like $30/month. The price was low enough for most working people, they'd even wire up your car for just a little more. When we'd go to Lake Michigan, I'd have the boombox, my buddy brought his phone out to the sand.
I have just picked up an "Additions" (Littlewoods) catalogue from 2007 that was sat at my Mothers house since it was current. With no tape Walkmans and only one half decent (Panasonic) CD Radio cassette I was rather surprised to see an expensive Sony Car unit with a cassette in it. Admittedly it came with a CD chager to go it the boot / trunk as was popular back then. I have left the others there for comparison. The Roadstar unit with a detachable MP3 player is also of its time. p.s. I just checked the Littlewoods site and the only Car Audio gear they now sell is some High End Pioneer units https://www.littlewoods.com/pioneer-avh-z3200dab-2-din-62-clear-type-resistive-multi-touchscreen-multimedia-player-with-usb-apple-carplay-dabdab-digital-radio-waze-bluetooth-and-13-band-geq/1600389773.prd?Ntt=car audio Just the sort of thing to fit in your highly customised 2007 Vauxhall Corsa to drown out the sound of the "Big Bore" exhaust
