Have you seen Highway, an automotive record player?

[Wavebourn]

[mickeymoose]

Nice pix! That takes me back to when I was 18, installing tube car radios (mono, 1 speaker). The plate voltage was generated by a vibrator (honestly, that is what they were called).

[Wavebourn]

[Wavebourn]

One more:

[kevinkr]

Interesting, my employer blocks the links to these pictures...

I remember seeing a slot loading 33rpm (full size LP) record player in a Greek Cypriot taxi (Big old Chevy) in Cypress 40 some odd years ago. I was amazed it played as well as it did.

Lesa and other Italian companies made some relatively horrible slot loading battery operated portable 45rpm players. My sisters had several of them which I was constantly fixing as they never seemed to run for long without attention. (Cleaning, lubrication, stylus replacement, motor service.) The battery makers really liked those machines as they ate through a set of 8 - 10 batteries in the space of just a few hours of play. (Italian made batteries were pretty bad in those days.)

[mickeymoose]

It was the Philips (not Phillips) I used to install. And all the steeeenking rich guys in ther Mercedeses (or Opel Kapitaens) and odd Edsel would complain about the 45s (Hoola-Hoop or Sweet16) skipping. Pot-holes were not as important to 1960 Germans as was feeding the family.
Rose-colered memories.
Hey: You want some 45s real cheap? I got a white truck!

[texaslonghorn]

This is pretty cool. And is that a young Lawrence Welk in the one picture??? Uh, not that I am old enough to be a fan of him, or Geritol.....

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by texaslonghorn

This is pretty cool. And is that a young Lawrence Welk in the one picture??? Uh, not that I am old enough to be a fan of him, or Geritol.....

I was wondering the same thing, although I would expect he would have been much younger than the fellow shown in the picture. (Perhaps not..)

Welk actually supported innovative technology in his younger days, invested heavily in a "video" (film really) jukebox back in the late 1940's. He was also a bit of a real-estate tycoon in later life.. Thanks to the PBS documentary on him, that was oddly compelling in a way...

I've not yet developed an appreciation for his music, although his showmanship could at times be amusing.. In my younger days my land lady just loved the Welk show and watched it religiously back in the early 1980s - hard to avoid as I did a lot of work around her place, nice lady she was..

[dangus]

Here's a page with much more information:
HIGHWAY HI-FI
Now I finally know why some old record changers had that 16 2/3 RPM setting...

I've seen a slot-loading player in the flesh at an old car enthusiast swap meet. The asking price seemed high, but maybe fair considering the rarity.

I'd just as soon get a hopelessly broken one and use it to hide a modern head unit or other A/V gear that would look out of place in a late-fifties truck.

[wa4htz]

Sitting in his 1956 (or could have been a '55 possibly) Dodge convertible, probably a Royal Lancer if I remember the models correctly. My '56 wasn't quite that fancy a model but it was my first car, handed down from dad with 90K on the odometer when I was 18. I thought I remembered from the owner's manual that the Highway Hi-Fi was put in the glove box but the picture shows it under the dash (there was plenty of room under there, unlike today's cars). Seeing the interior of the Dodge sure brings back plenty of memories.

Ken