your radio cassette player, what is it and why?

what is your music machine of choice?
well I got my car in August, it came from the car dealer with a Sony CD player/ radio , but the CD player has never worked and the radio has trouble remembering the push button radio stations, it can search for them fine and if the push button is held in, the station is "held" for a few days but a couple of weeks later, it's "gone"
what I love about it is that that the speakers are gorgeous but totally concealed, they are literally invisible with no sign at all, from what I can tell originally installed in 2001.
OK, that's mine, now what do you have in your car and why?

Kenwood with Bluetooth (No CD), hands free telephone pairing with cute little mic on steering column.

I prefer to open the window a little and listen to the V8 burble......
Mick

In Australia, radios were a dealer fitted item. My Rover originally came with a dealer fitted Blaupunkt push button radio. I threw it in the bin in 1986 when I replaced it with a high end Alpine digital cassette player with build in tuner. Subsequently that was replaced with a Clarion DVD player with Bluetooth and tuner.

Ron.

machman767 said:

I prefer to open the window a little and listen to the V8 burble......
Mick

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Hi, The same here, mine's under the bonnet.

Colin

I've just refitted my dad's original 8track player.

I have a 1977 Sony in mine.

Wanted to have a period correct FM unit and tape deck so I could use an ipod with a cassette adaptor.

clive P62 said:

I've just refitted my dad's original 8track player. View attachment 14577

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My first car had an 8 track player, but I only had one tape by Smokie....
Now there's one song that takes me right back to driving that 'ol Mini van

Got an old radio/cassette with removable front which allows the original blanking panel to clip back on, which is nice.

falkor said:

what is your music machine of choice?

well I got my car in August, it came from the car dealer with a Sony CD player/ radio , but the CD player has never worked and the radio has trouble remembering the push button radio stations, it can search for them fine and if the push button is held in, the station is "held" for a few days but a couple of weeks later, it's "gone"
what I love about it is that that the speakers are gorgeous but totally concealed, they are literally invisible with no sign at all, from what I can tell originally installed in 2001.
OK, that's mine, now what do you have in your car and why?

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Had one of those Or Full Sony head units (same model) in one of my cars a while back, my advice change it! I found my one to be very user unfriendly.

First unit mine had was a Pioneer 8-track.
Drove around Perth[oz] at night ,windows down ,Led zeppelin waking the natives up

A truly cheap and nasty bit of tat. It works. The car came with a fairly nice head unit, and an ok spare head unit too. But I wanted bluetooth and was still reelong from buying the car so went for this. No cd player, just mp3 via usb stick or sd card (or bluetooth obviously). Radio as well. Its a head unit I dont care about and not worth any money. You can buy them for peanuts. Its still way too modern, but I usually hide it with a modified rover blanking plate when I am not using it just to keep things looking more old school.

It doesn't look too bad in my eyes though. Better than most modern stuff really.
By the way, could you tell us what is all about the switch that is in place of the petrol reserve knob? Did the previous owner replace the fuel reserve cable with a solenoid, or did he just deleted this facility?

And a cheap nasty looking switch it is too There are switches out there that would look more period.

Demetris said:

It doesn't look too bad in my eyes though. Better than most modern stuff really.
By the way, could you tell us what is all about the switch that is in place of the petrol reserve knob? Did the previous owner replace the fuel reserve cable with a solenoid, or did he just deleted this facility?

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This will be a two part answer now as two people have questions. So, when I bought the car there was a blanking plug in the hole. No hint of reserve showing inside the car and at the time was also something I never knew even existed. The switch was one I had lying around and although not period, it did perform a function. The head unit in the car when I bought it was fitted on a permanent live. Not much of an issue on the head unit the car came with, but the illumination on the new unit was way too bright, especially at night, so as a quick fix I put the switch in there to kill the power to the head unit as a stopgap for when I later sorted the power to come off the ignition side. After sorting the power issue I re purposed the switch to control the two mini leds that are in the centre console. Somebody at some point had put a pair of stereo speakers in the sides of the centre console. The fittings holding the speakers (and the actual speakers) come fairly close to the front fascia and limit any switch used to something with a very small depth behind the fascia, hence a modern switch rather than a period switch as all the older stuff was far too deep for the area of use. The two leds are snuggled in tight to the speakers and are hardly visible when not in use but throw off a decent amount of light for driver and passenger areas.

Ps, I am also ok with the head unit look. Its better than a full on modern style. Plus its pretty much exactly what I needed from an in car head unit.

ghce said:

And a cheap nasty looking switch it is too There are switches out there that would look more period.

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Its a function over form issue. There isn't much room available behind the fascia as the speakers fittings come close to the front fascia. I tried an old lucas switch I had lying around and it was way too big for the space available. Hence the cheap nasty switch with a very small rear footprint that ended up in there. Ideally I would have preferred a push pull (like the rear screen switch) but there just isnt the space behind the fascia for it.

Just saw this on ebay, might be of interest to somebody looking for old school stuff. My phone doesnt have a headphone socket so no use to me, but for that I would have been in there like a shot.

Upgraded Vintage Retro Stereo Classic Car Radio, LW MW, 50s 60s, Auxiliary Cable | eBay

That looks far too "Bargain Basement" to be fitted to a Rover.

I prefer this look..

Or this look..