In the showrooms, 2011 was the end of the line. The last car to have a standard-equipment cassette player, the Lexus SC430, ceased production after the 2010 model year—but committed wow-and-flutter fans could still order a tape deck in the 2011 Ford Crown Victoria. For 2012, the option was stricken from the list, and the 45-year history of factory-supplied tape players came to an end with a whimper…
...which was appropriate, because it started with a bang in September of 1965 when Ford installed state-of-the art technology in a hot new car. The 1966 Mustang wasn’t the first vehicle to offer an audio option besides the radio – Chrysler’s 1957 “Highway Hi-Fi” was a relatively stable half-speed, in-car phonograph that used special records from Columbia – but it was the first to use the new 8-track tape.
Developed by the Lear Jet Corporation, the 8-track was an endless loop, 25-minute tape with (you guessed it) 8 magnetic tracks. This could be used to create a 50-minute quadra-phonic recording, but for popular music and automotive use it was generally configured with two 50-minute stereo recordings. Ford offered the world’s first 8-track player, also designed by Lear, in the 1966 Mustang, Thunderbird, and Lincoln Continental.
The 8-track was not without its limitations, the worst of which was the inability to rewind. Want to hear that song again? You have a lot of fast-forwarding ahead of you. To an audience that’s never really had any option besides the randomness of the radio, however, it wasn’t a deal-killer. For 1967, Ford made the option universal, and it started to appear on the competition.
The most sought-after 8-track in history appeared shortly afterwards. In 1969, Frank Sinatra and Antônio Carlos Jobim recorded a follow-up to their popular Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim, titled simply Sinatra-Jobim. It was released exclusively on 8-track before being taken off the market on Sinatra’s request. Very few copies exist today.
8-track sales increased steadily through the early 70s as the format became more popular with record companies and new-car purchasers. Lear offered a home 8-track player and a few quadra-phonic 8-tracks reached the mainstream, with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon leading the way. Much of the sales volume came from 2-for-1 8-tracks featuring 2 previously released albums. One example: In 1967, The Monkees released an exceptionally popular 8-track with their first two albums.
Another thing that drove 8-track popularity: for the first time, it was possible to copy your favorite album or radio show onto blank tape, then listen to it in the car. This is where a critical weakness of the 8-track popped up, however. It’s almost impossible to record consistent 8-track audio once the tape is loaded into the endless loop. The best-sounding 8-tracks were produced in factories and loaded into the cartridge after the fact. Regardless of the technique used the tape itself struggled to record frequencies above 12khZ, which gave 8-tracks a characteristic “muddy” sound.
The listeners of 1968 were willing to forgive many of 8-track’s failings. The listeners of 1978, on the other hand… well, that was after the Hi-Fi revolution and the arrival of audiophile candy like Aja by Steely Dan and Takin’ It To The Streets by the Doobie Brothers. There was now a real a demand for better audio in the car. 1978 would be the peak of 8-track sales with about 24% of the market, but that would sharply decline in the three following years.
It was the Philips Compact Cassette, which came to be generically known as a “cassette tape,” that killed the 8-track. While actually developed a year before the 8-track, Philips aimed it at the dictation market and it took a few years for the arrival of audio-focused portable players. Compared to the 8-track, it offered more flexibility, with a potential 120 minutes of stereo music and the ability to rewind as well as fast-forward.
For a few years, automotive cassette players were a European specialty, with Philips offering an aftermarket player in 1968 and Becker supplying them in new Mercedes-Benz cars by 1971. The quality of these initial cassettes, and their replay devices, turned out to be even lower than 8-track, but the “bones” of the Philips cassette were simply better than the 8-track. A series of improvements followed: “high-bias” and metal-oxide cassettes, as well as the Dolby noise-reduction system.
Very quickly, the cassette became the audiophile’s choice for recording radio shows and copying LP records. The American market was forced to fall in line with the European one. By 1980, both Ford and GM were offering cassette players as options across the lineup. The record labels supported this enthusiastically, because not only did cassette offer them a chance to sell a third version of the same albums to the same people, the low quality of the tapes they offered meant that listeners often had to replace them a few times, as well.
The quality of both aftermarket and OEM tape decks soared in the Eighties, with Bose and GM leading the way on the domestic side of the industry while the name “Blaupunkt” became a common refrain among import and aftermarket users. Even the music industry got in the game, replacing the beige cassettes of the early Eighties with transparent cassettes that were meant to indicate a higher grade of tape inside. (Sometimes this was even true.)
The best-selling cassette of all time was Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, but it’s perhaps more significant that the fifth-best selling cassette was the first volume of Eagles’ Greatest Hits, indicating that many cassette buyers, like their 8-track predecessors, were just buying their favorite albums again. Cassette sales overtook 8-track sales in 1980, then became 51% of the market for the first time in 1984.
Today, a proper 8-track or cassette player can be an important and enjoyable part of a classic car. Most cars from 1967 to 1980 can be retrofitted with an original-equipment 8-track player similar to what was optional at the time. Recertified and rebuilt 8-tracks are available from several vendors. Looking to retrofit 8-track to a car from before or after that period? Consider one of the aftermarket under-dash 8-track players from Sears Roebuck, Kraco, Radio Shack, and others. They, too, can be reconditioned, and in most cases can be installed with just two screws in the lower dash and a bit of wiring.
Adding cassette playback to a car that didn’t have it originally usually involves replacing the existing audio source with a reconditioned or new old stock in-dash cassette player. They’re plentiful on eBay and elsewhere, but the smart move is to work with an established reconditioner like this one to ensure that the playback mechanism is in good shape before installing it.
Once you have your new tape deck installed, you’ll be able to bring out your collection of 8-tracks or cassettes back out on the road. There’s even a bit of new music being released on the two formats, but there’s really nothing quite like throwing your favorite old tape into a classic, cranking the volume, and letting the good times roll once more.