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original RADIO to AH

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austin1957

austin1957

Freshman Member
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Hi
Did the healey use the same radio in usa and europe?
Does anyone have a radio to sell??
My car is a 1957 AH.
And what I want is original radio to that model.

This one is nice looking

Merry Christmas to Everybody! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif

From Norway
 
[ QUOTE ]
I believe the orginal radio had push buttons.
Keoke, what do ya say?
Roger

[/ QUOTE ]

Like this one

button radio

It's ok but the first one looks realy nice with the chrome and all.

Thanks
 
[ QUOTE ]
Did the healey use the same radio in usa and europe?

[/ QUOTE ]

I do not believe that the radios used in the US and the UK are the same. In the US they would have had AM almost exclusively in the 1950s and AM/FM from the mid/late 60s on.

In the UK there were two "bands" medium and long wave, as you can see in the photo of the one offered for sale. The "M" with the upper range denotes the medium band range and the "L" beside the lower range denotes the long wave band.

I do not know how these relate to the radio bands used on continental Europe, though I would have thought that the closeness of the UK would have made it conform with European practice (though maybe not). I'd suggest that you look at the bands and compare them to those used in Norway. This certainly sounds like it came from the UK and should be useable here; and I suspect that would allow you to use it on the continent too.

Hope this helps....
 
Question: Would these be a factory-installed option or one that was dealer installed? Could the dealer choose something non-standard?

I found a cigarette lighter with my dash and it seems the dealers could install these practically anywhere they liked....
 
FWIW, from what I can tell from the documentation with my '66 BJ8, the radio, AM only, was installed by the dealer.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I believe the orginal radio had push buttons.
Keoke, what do ya say?
Roger

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes Roger, that is correct to the best of my knowledge. However, since the radios were mostly dealer installed and the operating frequencies differed between the US and the UK. Radios installed here did not match those in the UK. The original BJ8 Radio advertised on E-bay ain't.---Fwiw--Keoke
 
[ QUOTE ]
Question: Would these be a factory-installed option or one that was dealer installed? Could the dealer choose something non-standard?

I found a cigarette lighter with my dash and it seems the dealers could install these practically anywhere they liked....

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes JW, the cigar lighters were an approved option but did not assert a specific mounting location. With regards to the radio I see nothing to stop a dealer from selecting any radio brand of his choice.--Keoke
 
Roger, I have an original (one push button is broken) that I purchased a while ago. Am only. If you have switched to neg ground as I have, it will not work. I was going to have it fixed but that stopped me. There is a company that replaces the guts with neg ground solid state am/fm stereo using the front and knobs of the original. The problem, $$$.
 
Hi
In the letter I get in the topic Earls court motor show 1957??

You can have radio as an option.
So if you wanted one they have to instsll it in the fabric or??.

Funny if someone could send pics from what they have in the car.

Merry Christmas to Everybody!
 
austin57, remember the one on e bay is for a bj8, its larger then the ones typicaly installed on earlier models i have a 63 bj7 the dashes in both our cars are very much the same,this is the original motorola a.m. that came in my car,see attch.ive never turned it on so im not sure it works, i can howerever test it, if youd like to use this style radio i can let it go on the cheap, also much has been said about speaker placement on this forum. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/savewave.gif
 

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[ QUOTE ]
Here is the picture of the radio from the 100-Six brochure

297310-radio.jpg


[/ QUOTE ] patton, yes this is the radio that would have been installed at the factory,but i believe most were installed by the dealers, im wondering if the "radio" option is listed on anyones heritage certificate as would be other options such as heater,demister,wire wheels, etc. mine does not list the radio so it had to be a dealer intallation the original previous owner said my car came from the dealer with the radio i have,see atch. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yesnod.gif
 

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The majority of US Triumph's, MG's and Austin Healey's had US manufactured radios. The "white faced" Motorola AM pictured in the responses with no push button was fairly standard in the 50's. I believe that particular one was positive ground however several manufacturers had radios that had a switch for either positive or negative. Triumph in particular had a dealer installed radio that said "Triumph" on the front.

The British company Smiths manufactured a radio with the name "Radiomobile" that were very popular and installed in mostly non US cars. The picture of the 100-6 options in the responses is a Radiomobile radio. Most of the early ones did not have push buttons. They were dual band radios. One of the bands works in the US on the AM, the other one doesn't.
Smiths "Radiomobile" I believe was the same company who manufactured the gauge's. They also manufactured a radio instalation kit for the TR3's.
 
My 67 BJ8 came from the factory with a push button AM radio confirmed by Heritage Cert
 
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