Healey Prices

[Bob_Spidell]

"Original Blaupunkt radio"

Did Healeys really come from the factory--or even a BMC dealership--with German radios?

 

[HealeyRick]

"Original Blaupunkt radio"

Did Healeys really come from the factory--or even a BMC dealership--with German radios?

Check out the Becker that DMH had in his 100S coupe

 

[Bob_Spidell]

That car was a bit of a 'one off' wasn't it? Did Blaupunkt have positive ground radios?

 

[Editor_Reid]

There's so many games played with eBay auctions I wouldn't take any of the results there as gospel.

I'll second that. The car sales on eBay are a hot bed of smoke and mirrors, with many sellers conveniently neglecting to disclose the bad news about the cars they are trying to unload. And once you've paid up to a couple thou $ to ship it, are you really in a position to return it to a seller who is ready to fight you every step of the way?

 

[British_Recovery]

Many Blaupunkt radios offered polarity choices on the unit.

 

[steveg]

Becker and Blaupunkt are/were different companies, weren't they?

 

[Keoke]

Many Blaupunkt radios offered polarity choices on the unit.

Yes those I have seen had a switch that allowed you to switch polarity.

 

[HealeyRick]

Becker and Blaupunkt are/were different companies, weren't they?

Yes, two different German companies. Since there were no radios installed in Healeys at the factory, an "original" radio could have a pretty wide definition. The "British Motor Corporation" radios installed by the US dealers were made by Motorola. But dealers were free to install any upgrades as could an original owner. I believe Radiomobile was the manufacture of choice for UK cars, although Becker and Blaupunkt would be seen as an upgrade. The Blaupunkt brochures that come with the eBay car look appropriate for 1967 and that radio could well be "original" to the car.

 

[steveg]

Yes, two different German companies. Since there were no radios installed in Healeys at the factory, an "original" radio could have a pretty wide definition. The "British Motor Corporation" radios installed by the US dealers were made by Motorola. But dealers were free to install any upgrades as could an original owner. I believe Radiomobile was the manufacture of choice for UK cars, although Becker and Blaupunkt would be seen as an upgrade. The Blaupunkt brochures that come with the eBay car look appropriate for 1967 and that radio could well be "original" to the car.

Weren't Beckers more high-end? -- found on Mercedes, Ferrari, Maserati, etc. My '67 Alfa GTV had a Blaupunkt as did a lot of 356s, IIRC.

 

[BJ8Healeys]

Since there were no radios installed in Healeys at the factory, an "original" radio could have a pretty wide definition.

Radios were installed at the factory, but not on cars destined for general distribution. They were installed on many "Personal Export Delivery" cars and quite a few different radios were available.
R.70.T
R.72.T
R.470.T
R.602.T
R.900.T
R.902.T
R.920.T
R.970.T
R.972.T
530.TA

I only know that the above were specified on BMIHT certificates as radio types, but I do not know how they differed.

 

[HealeyRick]

Radios were installed at the factory, but not on cars destined for general distribution. They were installed on many "Personal Export Delivery" cars and quite a few different radios were available.
R.70.T
R.72.T
R.470.T
R.602.T
R.900.T
R.902.T
R.920.T
R.970.T
R.972.T
530.TA

I only know that the above were specified on BMIHT certificates as radio types, but I do not know how they differed.

Steve,

Do you have records in the registry of any personal export cars with radios installed in the factory? Would be interesting to see what they were. I imagine there would be different types depending on the frequencies popular in the places the cars were destined to. For example, it seems a lot of radios in Europe have an SW band that we don't have in US radios.

 

[BJ8Healeys]

Steve,

Do you have records in the registry of any personal export cars with radios installed in the factory? Would be interesting to see what they were. I imagine there would be different types depending on the frequencies popular in the places the cars were destined to. For example, it seems a lot of radios in Europe have an SW band that we don't have in US radios.

Yes, I have records of 49 BJ8s that left the factory with radios installed. All were Personal Export Delivery cars. It would be interesting to know which features made a "Type R.900.T" different from a "Type R.972.T", but I haven't had any luck researching that on the internet. Googling "R.70.T" gets me a modern Blaupunkt radio. BJ8 38268 went originally to Doha, Qatar with a 530TA radio and it appears to be unique. I suppose that available frequencies would have been one difference in the radios.
I haven't done a survey to contact owners of cars with original radios to get the details, but I could do that. It would add some knowledge to the database, at least, if I could get photos of the different types.

 

[Bob_Spidell]

I have no data, I just can't see Austin installing a German radio at the factory (a dealer, sure, and that would count as 'original, but if someone pulled a BMC/Motorola radio and installed a Blaupunkt, that wouldn't be 'original' IMO).

Side topic: What type of antennae would be 'original' to the cars? My BJ8 has a springy thing that I doubt came with the car; I don't think they had windshield-embedded or otherwise hidden antennas back then.

 

[HealeyRick]

Yes, I have records of 49 BJ8s that left the factory with radios installed. All were Personal Export Delivery cars. It would be interesting to know which features made a "Type R.900.T" different from a "Type R.972.T", but I haven't had any luck researching that on the internet. Googling "R.70.T" gets me a modern Blaupunkt radio. BJ8 38268 went originally to Doha, Qatar with a 530TA radio and it appears to be unique. I suppose that available frequencies would have been one difference in the radios.
I haven't done a survey to contact owners of cars with original radios to get the details, but I could do that. It would add some knowledge to the database, at least, if I could get photos of the different types.

That's really interesting about these factory installed radios. Never knew that before. I wonder if those numbers were an internal factory code instead of the model the radio manufacturer assigned to it. For example, an R70T could be a Motorola AM. while a R72 might be a Blaupunkt AM/FM/SW, etc. There's some interesting period radios in the info from this search I did on the MGAGuru: https://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=43320139&pageid=r&mode=all&n=0&query=radio

 

[Legal Bill]

The values have been steady overall for the BJ-8. Is that a sign that we have seen the top of the market? As always, we start with market demand. How many buyers are there for how many cars? In my opinion, the number of cars is actually increasing due to the feverish work of the restoration community. Yes, i know they are not "new" cars, but they are not really marketable as vehicles until they are restored. My sense, and I have NO data to support this, is that more good to excellent condition Healeys are entering the world than leaving it through damage, decay or neglect. And this is true for all collectible cars of a certain value.

At the same time, I believe buyers for Healeys are exiting the pool faster than they are entering it. Through age and death, the people that want these cars either can no longer manage them or have passed them on to younger people who may lack the prior owner's enthusiasum. I think the bulk of the buying market is between 60 and 75 years old, with most of those who are older than 75 getting out of it and most of those who are younger than 60 having interest in other vehicles, or no interest in classic cars at all.

Politics are a factor here. "my generation", while eager to help the environment, grew up loving the automobile. The younger generation sees the automobile as a problem. You just don't have the pool of replacement buyers to begin with, even if you could transfer our love of these cars to younger people.

In summary, the end is not here, but as someone above pointed out, the Model As and Ts and even the Ford T-Bird sort of point the way.

 

[Bob_Spidell]

Nailed it, Bill.

 

[steveg]

Bill - strongly agree. Not to mention our small-business suppliers such as Joe Curto, Russ Thompson, Tom Monaco, Jeff Schlemmer and others - all of a certain age.

 

[Novamonte]

I read somewhere that people who look for a classic car often tend to look for cars that were modern when they (the prospective collector, not the car!) were 8-10 years of age, when a car interest is normally developed. We simply don't have the same relationship with older cars.

 

[AngusSaunders]

Something doesn't seem quite right here.

https://utica.craigslist.org/cto/d/fort-plain-1962-austin-healey/6821976518.html

 

[HealeyRick]

Something doesn't seem quite right here.

https://utica.craigslist.org/cto/d/fort-plain-1962-austin-healey/6821976518.html

Classic Craigslist scam. They take a picture from a legit sale advertisement and use it to bait someone into giving a deposit. Easiest way to spot these is to do a Google image search of the advertisement picture and see where it was used before. Here's the one that comes up for this picture: https://classiccars.com/listings/vi...ey-bt7-for-sale-in-bedford-heights-ohio-44146 Much more than $13.5k