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What was the first Packard model to have a radio? And when did radios become a regular feature in cars in general?

as always
Garrett Meadows

I think they started to be an option in the 11th series (1934). If I'm wrong please correct me.

1934 was the first year that Packards were factory pre-wired for radios but they were offered by Packard as accessories quite a few years before that, jperhaps as early as 1929. And there were installations available from radio company stores before that.

A pure guess but I'd think by just prewar perhaps half of luxury cars were ordered with a radio.

Hi Garrett

Automotive installation of radios, both factory and aftermarket, was an explosive growth business in the 1930's in spite of the Depression. Although they weren't cheap, people had really embraced this new, coming thing radio. Powell Crosley built a major share of his fortune on it, as well as other companies such as Motorola and Philco.

Steve

Paul Galvin was the founder of Motorola and he was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame because he popularized the car radio.automotivehalloffame.org/inductee/paul-galvin/774/

But the story goes on and here is the condensed version courtesy of the Interweb.

One evening in 1929 two young men named William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above the Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois to watch the sunset. It was a romantic night to be sure, but one of the women observed that it would be even nicer if they could listen to music in the car.

Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered with radios - Lear had served as a radio operator in the U. S. Navy during World War I - and it wasn't long before they were taking apart a home radio and trying to get it to work in a car. But it wasn't as easy as it sounds: automobiles have ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other electrical equipment that generate noisy static interference, making it nearly impossible to listen to the radio when the engine was running.

One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated each source of electrical interference. When they finally got their radio to work, they took it to a radio convention in Chicago. There they met Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. He made a product called a "battery eliminator" a device that allowed battery-powered radios to run on household AC current. But as more homes were wired for electricity, more radio manufacturers made AC-powered radios. Galvin needed a new product to manufacture. When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio convention, he found it. He believed that mass-produced, affordable car radios had the potential to become a huge business.

Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin's factory, and when they perfected their first radio, they installed it in his Studebaker. Then Galvin went to a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might sweeten the deal, he had his men install a radio in the banker's Packard. Good idea, but it didn't work. Half an hour after the installation, the banker's Packard caught on fire. (They didn't get the loan.)[EDIT: Didn't all bankers drive a Packard?]

Galvin didn't give up. He drove his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to show off the radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention. Too broke to afford a booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall and cranked up the radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it. That idea worked - he got enough orders to put the radio into production.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO....
The two men who installed the first radio in Paul Galvin's car, Elmer Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very different paths in life. Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950's he helped change the automobile experience again when he developed the first automotive alternator, replacing inefficient and unreliable generators. The invention lead to such luxuries as power windows, power seats, and, eventually, air-conditioning.

Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150 patents. Remember eight-track tape players? Lear invented that. But what he's really famous for are his contributions to the field of aviation. He invented radio direction finders for planes, aided in the invention of the autopilot, designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, and in 1963 introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear Jet, the world's first mass-produced, affordable business jet. (Not bad for a guy who dropped out of school after the eighth grade.)

Roger, did you ever read Galvin's "The Founder's Touch"? A company I worked for was in the process of being purchased by Motorola (deal eventually fell thru) and copies of the book were passed around, as "required" reading.

Looking for a photo of one of the early radio installations where the control head was mounted on the steering column, I know I have one somewhere, perhaps someone else will beat me to it.