History Who on the H.A.M.B. has the oldest original car radio in their car?

I'm lucky, we have a decent station here, KLEB.
The music is eclectic. Listening to rock-n-roll right now on my transistor radio here in the office.

I can bypass the AM and connect my phone in the car, and get it to play anything I want. That's nice to have.

 

There are a few HAMBers that are fortunate enough to have the holy grail of early car radio heads....the Arvin. As you can see they are gorgeous. This one is owned by HAMBer @Elrod

 

Working stock radio in a 34 Ford Dlx 3W. Make it bigger and look center of the dash.

Of note, Packard offered a radio in 32 as well. By 34 all Packards were prepped for radios with little needed to add it on. Many old radios ran a "dynamo" as in a little generator for radio power. I didn't every reply so sorry if that's a repeat.

 

I ran into a guy at Georges Chile King in DesMoines one night who had an original 32 Pontiac coupe with a radio in it. I believe he said it was a dealer installed part when the car was bought new. .

 

1933 Grigsby Grunow Majestic Auto-Radio in my 33 Ford.

 

I was given a whole truck load of stuff from a guy who was happy to find a home for it all. Amongst everything is a Motorola for a 1933 Dodge. Might put it in my 34.

 

Sony Red Transistor Radio circa 1960
Hello,

We did not have any money as teenagers to add a full AM radio to the 40 sedan delivery. So, we made do with a hand-me down, small portable, Sony radio from my dad. He was an avid baseball/football fan and always had a small radio glued to his ear to listen to “his games.” He tried all sorts of small radios, but finally only one fit into his shirt pocket. So, the Sony portable was mine to use.

He used that one for several years, then when the latest, new, compact version came out, he got that one. He was such a fanatic of his AM station reporting, that he listened to his radio while a game was being played live, on the L.A. Coliseum grass field below. The old reliable, red, Sony Transistor radio was available, just in time to hang from our rear view mirror or hanging from the glove box door of the 40 Ford Sedan Delivery. High school music at its finest… for cost and availability.

Somewhere I read that if you have your stereo on loud and can’t hear the sound of your car, you are missing out on the best part of owning that car. When we were driving around in the Salmon Pink (racing Red) 40 Ford Sedan Delivery in 1961-64, we did not have a honking stereo. We had my small red or white Sony AM, portable, hand held radio. The Red one was my dad’s as he used it to listen to baseball games. Mine was a white one similar in build and leather cover.

I recently found the white one in another box in the garage attic while looking for some old photos. Sometimes, it hung from the rear view mirror or a dash knob. The empty shell in the back of the delivery made a great hollow chamber for the best music we could hear. Once, we even tried wiring a borrowed drive-in speaker to the small Sony Radio. (found in the same attic box) Better, but not much…Driving this cool sedan delivery all over town was still fun even without the best built in radio.

In the later years, after high school, the 327 powered Ford Sedan Delivery had two 6x9 speakers in boxes that made a regular AM/FM stereo sound outstanding. I even hooked up an extra amp for more powerful sounds from those external speakers.


But listening to those early sounds from the LA stations like KFWB was the thing to do. My 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery squeaked out music from a small hand held Sony portable AM radio given to me by my dad, when he got a new one. So, that was my original rock and roll music in that sedan delivery. The portable AM radio hanging from the rear view mirror. Inside of the sedan delivery, the hollow chamber made it sound a lot better than it was.


I just happen to find that portable Sony radio in the storage drawer of our garage. When I put in new batteries, it worked and of course, AM radio is not like it used to be. But memories can take one back to those 1956-62 days of listening to old rock and roll songs. I did find a song on my Ipod Touch playlist from 1956: The 5 Satins… “In The Still of The Night.”

No, it was not from the A.G. movie. This was pure Westside of Long Beach cool music from our junior high school 45 rpm days and portable AM radio. (Yes, trying to duplicate the sounds in a basement of a local church did make it sound better than in our backyard rumpus room, “rec” center…Ha!)

Jnaki

But, I still have my original old radio from the 1960 purchased, 1940 Flathead Ford Sedan Delivery sitting in my drawer ready for action, if there is any action on AM radio, anymore. Thanks, dad…YRMV

We showed the small portable radio to our granddaughter and her question was... "What is that?"
A what??? For us, it was holding something to listen to music. For our dad, it was listening to baseball and football games. For our granddaughter, it was an Iphone for everything, camera, music, photos, artwork, movies, etc... Times have certainly changed...