In dash record players from the 1950s

AKA "Highway HiFi"

 

I've hear of them since I was a kid, but never seen one in person, even at car shows.

 

I saw one at a car show one time, I believe it was in a 1957 or 1958 Imperial. I still can't imagine the thing being able to track a disc while the car was in motion, nor that you could get many plays before the record was trashed. Interesting concept though. Thank goodness that tape cartridges came and saved the day, in spite of their many shortcomings.

 

And the selection for Highway HiFi was very limited, not for rock and R&B fans.

 

Those Imperials ran smooth. I drove a well restored '61 a while back and it drives much better than most old cars in terms of handling, despite its huge size. My ten year old FWD Cadillac has absolutely nothing on it in terms of performance and it was getting almost as good mileage to boot. Of course, it was more expensive than other domestic cars when new.

 

A friend of mine a 45 player in a '67 Buick Grand Sport and carried his 45s in the trunk in a cardboard box with no sleeves. I still can't listen to Lenny O'Henry's Across The Street on CD. It just doesn't sound like his original 45 from the box in the trunk. The character was missing. My friend later founded a company reissuing and original "Beach Music", even licensed some tracks to DCC .

 

They were very smooth. That's one thing that Chrysler did, was to engineer good-handling cars. I learned to drive in a 1966 Chrysler 300 that handled better than any car that large has a right to.

 

Hope it had a rumble filter...

 

Beattles,

Was that label by chance, Ripete Records. I loved their reissues and always excellent quality.

 

Yes, my friend is Marion Carter. We listened to a lot of different kinds of music together. He came by one afternoon in summer of 1973 and wanted to trade me a copy of From Me To You on VJ for my copy of Hello Goodbye so he could "complete" his Beatles singles, after some thought I said sure, I'd like to do the same... and 41 years later we are still working on it. I made sure the VJ single wasn't from the trunk stash first.

 

It only plays 45's? I can understand some mood music for parking with your girl but 3 minutes can't be of much use.