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Sun Oct 25, 2020 8:43 pm

I’ve been poking around here tonight looking for a summary of the stock radios that might have been offered by model or year, but haven’t found one. Does such a thread exist? Or perhaps there were too many offered for that kind of thing to be practical to produce?

My 1968 Squareback has a Pianola SR-801 AM/FM in it, and I’m curious about it. It is of Japanese origins so I’m assuming it didn’t come standard in a German car, but who knows?

Sun Oct 25, 2020 8:50 pm

Radios were dealer-installed (sometimes distributor, maybe?), and so there is no absolute standard.

There were probably common types/models, depending on their inventory at time of purchase or preparation for the lot.

Mon Oct 26, 2020 2:58 pm

Thanks Phil.

Tue Oct 27, 2020 8:04 am

this might help

http://vwradios.com/Sapphire_Radios_1960_to_1967.html

Tue Oct 27, 2020 9:58 am

motorola and blaupunkt's were really expensive and it was pretty common to wait a few years before installing a radio, like after your last car payment...

a major city discount store or JC Whitney type place would have japanese electronics in the early 70's... probably where yours came from. absolutely not stock or even offered at a dealership though

Tue Oct 27, 2020 12:25 pm

Erik G wrote: motorola and blaupunkt's were really expensive and it was pretty common to wait a few years before installing a radio, like after your last car payment...

a major city discount store or JC Whitney type place would have japanese electronics in the early 70's... probably where yours came from. absolutely not stock or even offered at a dealership though

I consider myself lucky. The original owner of my 412....ordered the car with a Motorola. He took it out right after delivery at a dealer in Frankfurt....and had it replaced with a Blaupunkt Wolfsburg III.

I have the radio tags from both radios, the dealer receipt and the spare Motorola. The car came with the Wolfsburg III in the dash. Has molded VW symbols in the knobs...and is AM/Shortwave with pushbuttons.

This is the exact same radio here. Gorgeous face plate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Dh93qKeKi1w

Ray

Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:00 pm

Was continuing to search this topic on the web in general and stumbled across this link:

https://oldvolkshome.wetwesties.org/vwradios051112.html

Not sure it is authoritative, but looks like the author spent some time researching it.