Technical Aftermarket radios in the mid 50s

Is there anyone out there old enough to remember if the aftermarket car radios were as good or better and possibly worse then what came from the factory back then,my dad ordered my 55 Ford and looking at the invoice the am radio was around 80 dollars and in my mind there is no way I would have spent that much on a am radio and would have got 80 dollars more of options and had a aftermarket radio installed. Having not been alive then and my experiences with aftermarket radios now might be clouding my mind,the dealer I worked at in the 80s would order all vehicles for stock radio ready which included antenna,speakers and wiring but no radio and sold the customer a dealer installed radio and made much more money.

 

Not much aftermarket in the mid 50’s everything was still vacuum tube. 60’s was the big change with transistors. I bought a 58 Olds with a pull out portable radio and it was a big deal then. Al lot of 50’s dashes were cut up in the 60’s for the new available radios. When these cars are saved now original dash parts are welded back in.

 

The stock radio in my '51 was labeled Delco but designed by Sylvania.
Electronics-wise, it's an intriguing design; the radio isn't tuned with a moving-plate capacitor, as is still common today but instead uses ferrite slugs down through the coils to change their inductance. It was either patent-dodging but also it is less susceptible to mechanical vibration.
All the big names already had patents on as many permutations of AM circuits as had been thought of, so aftermarket radios needed to be a well known name to run a chance of being any good.

The same with the power output stage. Evidently someone had deep pockets; the amplifier is the same design that Fender use on their guitar amplifiers. In this case, the electronics significantly outshine the loudspeaker, unusual for an AM set.

I can see why it was an expensive option that people would shy away from. But, it's as good as any contemporary household set.

Phil

 

The factory radio in my 55 Buick was the best AM radio I ever had in a car. It always came in clear as a bell, especially at night. I could pick up stations hundreds of miles away late at night, never had a problem with it!

 

I've seen a few aftermarket almost OEM looking radios in cars over the years that were probably installed in cars that left the factory without a radio. The one I remember the best was one that looked cheap compared to the original factory radios . All I remember about it was that it just had the dial and the two knobs and a brand not associated with the car brand's factory radio. Something like you would get at Western Auto or though JC Whitney. The regular radio on those cars had pushbuttons and some fancy trim on them.
I don't Remember any "upgrade radios" for American cars in the aftermarket before the early 70's. For Volkswagons there were some Blaplunkt AM FM radios for VW bugs around. I remember that a buddy had one mounted in his car in the mid 60's in a bracket under the dash when there were very few FM stations around and most of them plaid Classical music or Jazz. I remember he bought it for about 5 bucks out of a wrecking yard because the yard owner didn't think it was worth anything.

 

I agree with the above statements. AM was it. Any thing popular was on AM. Also The function of push button tuning was elaborate and dependable. The real cool move was a rear speaker. Aftermarket meant Philco (meh) or Motorola a standard.
As already said, FM came up late 60s. The AM static was part of life, as was TV interference from aircraft. Getting airwave broadcast was ( still is {cell phones} I feel ) a miracle.

I detest today's factory offerings that demand I take my eyes off the road to see where my finger lands. Pardon the rant Thank you.

 

My dad had a '61 Ranchero, bought used about a year old. No options unless the heater was extra back then. No radio, just a block off plate in the dash. He bought an under dash AM radio with built in speaker. Had fake pushbuttons. Sound was chintzy, reception not so good. I'm sure the factory unit would have been much better. Things changed a lot in the 70's when 8-tracks got popular. Aftermarket units were vastly superior to factory and cost much less. I recall buying an OT Camaro in '75 that came with no radio but did have the "radio accommodation package." I think it cost $23. The antenna, wiring and dash speaker were already installed so the customer or dealer could add the radio of their choice. I'm sure that was in response to dealers losing sales to all the car stereo shops that sprung up at that time.

 

My '37 Cadillac has a stock factory radio, it was the most expensive option you could get in '37. It works very good as most factory radios did, they had another stage of amplification compared to most home radios at the time. This was a R.F. stage before the tuning stage. I also have a '46 International with a '50's aftermarket "under dash" radio in it, it does not perform anything like the Cadillac radio. Guess you get what you pay for!

 

In the 40's and 50's if your car came without a radio, you could go to a Firestone Store and get a Firestone aftermarket radio installed in the dash. They usually didn't have pushbuttons, just 2 knobs and a dial to show what station you were tuned to. From the factory the cheap radio's just had knobs and no pushbuttons. Next up was the radio with pushbuttons, then the top of the line radio was the Wonderbar or signal seeking radio. Depending on the car make, GM was Wonderbar. It came with a foot switch that looked like a headlight dimmer switch. You could change the station with your foot without touching the radio or taking your eyes off the road.

 

The few aftermarket radios I have seen were mostly in pickups and larger trucks. They were all under the dash or mounted from the roof, most had the speaker built in. I don't remember of them with pushbutton tuning.

 

I do remember seeing a few aftermarket 55 Ford radios that did not exactly like the factory but never heard them so I know nothing about the quality,I just know that the aftermarket stereos I put in my daily drivers (80s and 90s) over the last 15 years or so had more features then the factory radios but now the factory radios have all those features. I think there were two radios available for my 55,one was the 6 tube with black push buttons which is the one that my dad ordered and a 8 tube with chrome push buttons.

 

My '47 Plymouth came with an original radio by I foolishly gave it away when I tried to adapt a cassette player one in its vertical hole. When I tried to find a replacement for the original one, I found an aftermarket one that fit the vertical hole but it doesn't have the pushbutton and it doesn't work either. I think I will just settle for using an original radio block off plate.

 

This was the radio in my 58 Rambler. The stock center hole was big enough to fit a cd player and I used the knob holes for a horn button and toggle switch for lights.

 

just to give you an idea of radio prices in 1958. And in 1955, transistor radios mostly weren't around yet...only tube...so figure an aftermarket radio would cost $30-75 depending on model, quality, etc. And they weren't small, either.

 

Average ($52.50) radio would be $515 today.

 

The Radio that came with my 50 Merc. I Still Have it has Push Buttons
onit & it worked Good Specialy at the Sub. Races down at the Park.
My 56 T-Bird had a Wonder-Bar Radio that Worked Great
But I Didn't have a Radio on my Motorcycle Not like todays Bikes
Have+



Just my 3.5 cents


Live Learn & Die a Fool

 

In the 1950's I installed several aftermarket radio's in my car's. They all seemed to work quit well. But in the '50's there were not too much else to compare with. And AM was the sounds of the day! Also lots of cool AM stations to listen to while cruising the main drag!

 

When I was a kid the AM stations were great but by the time I started driving in 77 they went down hill and FM started coming around so that is what I listened to from then on. I did not get to experience the great AM stations long enough to think it was worth depending good money on to listen to them.

 

In the '50's the big audio mod was a rear seat speaker. I bought a stereo receiver for my house in 1960 and although it was set up for FM there were hardly any FM stations. 1963 was the first optional AM-FM in American cars.

 

Car radios were expensive in those days. Government fleet vehicles purchased from Ford and others, didn't have radios for that reason. Such luxuries were considered a waste of taxpayer dollars. It's true, at one time that was something to be considered. Weird, huh?

 

...

 

Government fleet vehicles didn't have radios until they became a standard option in the late '70s. Went for A/C as well. Also had dash stickers requiring maximum speed of 50 mph.

Vacuum tubes and resistance capacitors are maintenance items on the old radios. When they failed, radios were usually junked. Pretty much a shame, as the warm sound quality can't be beat. They are worth saving and restoring, if tube type is available.

Joe

 

Don't know how it worked in the states but I found a house radio in the barn of my grandmother's farm. There was a tag inside the back of it that said it was from 1932 and you had to buy an operator's licence for 15 cents to use it.

 

Tubes for car radios are plentiful and cheap. It's rarely the case that they actually need a new tube. The problem is, there isn't much to listen to other than wall to wall commercials.

 

Back when I had my 53 Olds I found a working wonderbar radio,we had a oldies station on AM but before I got it on the road it went away so a modern stereo went in the glove box. I really like the sound of a tube radio but like said before there is nothing to listen to but I think there are now devises made to have a USB port attach to those old radios but people who know how to service tube radios are not as readily available.

 

I've not heard of a resistance capacitor. What are they?

There are just a couple things that will cause a vacuum tube to fail. The most common is the loss of vacuum due to bad sealing between the pins and the glass enclosure. The other is due to vibration or shock causing misalignment and arcing of grid wires or other components within the tube.

I worked as a television repair geek in the 70's. and it was usually pretty apparent if a tube was "leaky". They would have a blue or purple glow around some parts of the tube. Sometimes you would also see the plates in a tube glowing a dull red, indicating that the tube was overloaded due to high current somewhere in the circuit. The tubes could actually give you a clue as to what might be wrong based on what you might see inside them.

It's hard to look at a transistor or I/C and get a clue as to what is wrong with it.

 

I disliked AM radio music, it was all a mostly a constant repeat of the top hits…I liked rock and roll and by the late 50’s it faded and was replaced by Bobby Vinson crap in the NYC area.At night there were a few low key R&B stations…Then R&R came back along with FM…

 

I have put on my pedantic hat and shall say "snubber".

 

I picked up this Sears Allstate radio at a swap meet a few years ago. It has a built in speaker and worked when I briefly hooked it up.

Gary

 

I have no clue on what was available back in 55 and I first started paying attention back in the late 70s after I got my first car,in 05 I started working at a shop that sold stereos and since I could get it at cost then really started getting new radios for all my cars. I was looking at the invoice for my 55 and wondering how I would have ordered it.