A friend sent me the following essay on the humble beginnings os radios for use in cars. I thought it was most interesting as I did not really know about this. I hope you H.A.M.B. guys and gals will like the following: (Moderators - if this is off topic, no worries, just delete) SUNDOWN One evening in 1929 two young men named William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above the Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois, to watch the sunset. It was a romantic night to be sure, but one of the girls observed that it would be even nicer if they could listen to music in the car. Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered with radios - Lear had served as a radio operator in the U. S. Navy during World War I - and it wasn't long before they were taking apart a home radio and trying to get it to work in a car. But it wasn't as easy as it sounds: automobiles have ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other electrical equipment that generate noisy static interference, making it nearly impossible to listen to the radio when the engine was running. SIGNING ON One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated each source of electrical interference. When they finally got their radio to work, they took it to a radio convention in Chicago. There they met Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. He made a product called a "battery eliminator" a device that allowed battery-powered radios to run on household AC current. But as more homes were wired for electricity, more radio manufacturers made AC-powered radios. Galvin needed a new product to manufacture. When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio convention, he found it. He believed that mass-produced, affordable car radios had the potential to become a huge business. Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin's factory, and when they perfected their first radio, they installed it in his Studebaker. Then Galvin went to a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might sweeten the deal, he had his men install a radio in the banker's Packard. Good idea, but it didn't work - half an hour after the installation, the banker's Packard caught on fire. (They didn't get the loan.) Galvin didn't give up. He drove his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to show off the radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention. Too broke to afford a booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall and cranked up the radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it. That idea worked - he got enough orders to put the radio into production. WHAT'S IN A NAME That first production model was called the 5T71. Galvin decided he needed to come up with something a little catchier. In those days many companies in the phonograph and radio businesses used the suffix "ola" for their names - Radiola, Columbiola, and Victrola were three of the biggest. Galvin decided to do the same thing, and since his radio was intended for use in a motor vehicle, he decided to call it the Motorola. But even with the name change, the radio still had problems: When Motorola went on sale in 1930, it cost about $110 uninstalled, at a time when you could buy a brand-new car for $650, and the country was sliding into the Great Depression. (By that measure, a radio for a new car would cost about $3,000 today.) In 1930 it took two men several days to put in a car radio - the dashboard had to be taken apart so that the receiver and a single speaker could be installed, and the ceiling had to be cut open to install the antenna. These early radios ran on their own batteries, not on the car battery, so holes had to be cut into the floorboard to accommodate them. The installation manual had eight complete diagrams and 28 pages of instructions. HIT THE ROAD Selling complicated car radios that cost 20 percent of the price of a brand-new car wouldn't have been easy in the best of times, let alone during the Great Depression - Galvin lost money in 1930 and struggled for a couple of years after that. But things picked up in 1933 when Ford began offering Motorolas pre-installed at the factory. In 1934 they got another boost when Galvin struck a deal with B. F. Goodrich tire company to sell and install them in its chain of tire stores. By then the price of the radio, installation included, had dropped to $55. The Motorola car radio was off and running. (The name of the company would be officially changed from Galvin Manufacturing to "Motorola" in 1947.) In the meantime, Galvin continued to develop new uses for car radios. In 1936, the same year that it introduced push-button tuning, it also introduced the Motorola Police Cruiser, a standard car radio that was factory preset to a single frequency to pick up police broadcasts. In 1940 he developed with the first handheld two-way radio - the Handie-Talkie - for the U. S. Army. A lot of the communications technologies that we take for granted today were born in Motorola labs in the years that followed World War II. In 1947 they came out with the first television to sell under $200. In 1956 the company introduced the world's first pager; in 1969 it supplied the radio and television equipment that was used to televise Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon. In 1973 it invented the world's first handheld cellular phone. Today Motorola is the second-largest cell phone manufacturer in the world. And it all started with the car radio. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO.. The two men who installed the first radio in Paul Galvin's car, Elmer Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very different paths in life. Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950's he helped change the automobile experience again when he developed the first automotive alternator, replacing inefficient and unreliable generators. The invention lead to such luxuries as power windows, power seats, and, eventually, air-conditioning. Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150 patents. Remember eight-track tape players? Lear invented that. But what he's really famous for are his contributions to the field of aviation. He invented radio direction finders for planes, aided in the invention of the autopilot, designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, and in 1963 introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear Jet, the world's first mass-produced, affordable business jet. (Not bad for a guy who dropped out of school after the eighth grade
I don't know if it matters, but I suppose we should try for some historical accuracy when we can. I know Earl "Madman" Muntz put a radio in his parent's car in 1928. I know Muntz was selling his four-track stereos to Bill Lear for use in his jets. Lear then "tinkered" with one, and he came out with the eight-track. Earl Muntz was inducted into the Consumer Electronic Hall of Fame posthumously as the "Inventor of Car Stereo".... Not attempting to diminish anything Bill Lear accomplished in any way, but a fellow did come before him...
Maybe I missed it - but what year and model car was the first mass production car radio install in? I had a '41 Plymouth that had a Motorola radio in it - great sound.
No worries SpecialEd. I submitted the essay as I thought it was a very interesting story. I had no reason to doubt and I guess I was too lazy to check its veracity. But, isn't it our job to correct or add to stories when we know more of the actual story? That's what you did. Earl "Madman" Muntz certainly deserves credit for all that he did, and if he truly was the first guy to do those things, then we should recognize that fact. If a lie is repeated often enough, you know what happens...
Well...the factory radio for a 33 ford was made by grigsby-grunow and in 34 made by zenith when grigsby went out of business, not Motorola.
Whoa! We better slow down! We started at 1929, went to 1928, and now we are all the way back to 1922! If we continue at this pace, we'll have radios in cars before there even WERE any cars...
Well, I guess you learn something new every day. And sometimes what we think is new ain't necessarily so. But, thanks to the vigilance of the people of the H.A.M.B., the truth will be found, or something close to it. Thanks guys, for adding to the "rest of the story."!
Bludice..funny, the oldest car I ever saw with a factory radio was also a '41 Plymouth! A nice little ragtop that is now being restored by a buddy of mine.
Both Bill Lear and Elmer Wavering are well regarded "home town boys" in Quincy's rather remarkable past history! While Bill Lear went on to achieve greater notoriety, and earned it, Elmer Wavering stayed with Motorola and quietly contributed greatly to it's success. Some years ago the Wavering family funded a major Park District project and we now have the Wavering Aquatic Park for all to enjoy. Ray
Great read - just the kind of story that makes me love the HAMB. I have the original factory installed Motorola radio in my 1936 Hupp....
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