Face it, we love jamming to our tunes while tooling down the road. A 2018 study by Emerson
Research found out that some 70 percent of Americans over age 13 listen to audio in their
automobile every day. And an ever shrinking number of us recall when a five and a half inch by four
inch piece of plastic transformed our perception of driving forever. Along with hot pants and bell
bottoms, sideburns and disco, that eight-track player in your dad's Thunderbird represented not
just a nostalgic era, but a revolution in freedom. It is history that deserves to be remembered.
Audio in automobiles is older than you probably imagine. According to the Online Radio Museum,
Lee de Forest, the radio technology pioneer who developed the Audion tube, demonstrated the first
automobile equipped with a wireless receiver at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition
in St Louis. De Forrest’s demonstrations received the grand prize Medal for General Excellence
in Wireless Telegraphy on the exhibition's Electricity Day. There were various versions
of radios and cars in the 1920s, but it wasn't until 1930 that the first mass-produced radios
for cars were made by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin. The Automotive Hall of Fame writes that,
“Paul Galvin recognized the potential when his business selling radio parts started to fail
during the Great Depression, but he noticed that car sales remained steady. The Hall of Fame writes
Galvan knew he needed to develop a practical and affordable car radio before the Great Depression
took his business. The brothers demonstrated their car radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers
Association convention in Atlantic City to wide acclaim. The brothers sold their
radios under the name of the company that they formed with inventor and businessman Bill Lear
Motorola, a combination of motor and victrola. It was not cheap. The original model cost 130 dollars
in a time when a new Ford Model A cost about 540. Still it was a game changer. The Hall of
Fame concludes that, “Galvan made the car radio as important to driving as the steering wheel.”
Soon radios became considered to be a standard feature. A 2012 edition of the webpage Mental
Floss notes that by 1946, nine million cars had radios. Thanks to the transistor both size
and price came down so that by 1963, 50 million cars, over 60 percent were outfitted with radios,
by then over one third of American radio listening occurred in the car. By the
mid-1950s most car radios were also receiving the better quality FM broadcast, but there was
still a limit. Even with the addition of push buttons that move the radio to favorite stations,
with a radio, you don't have much control over the songs coming out of your speakers.
The first attempts to give the driver the ability to choose their tunes occurred in the mid 1950s
utilizing the most popular method of listening to music at home, the turntable. Highway hi-fi,
as the website Ars Technica explains, “The world's first in-car music system
the system used 7-inch photographic records but by slowing the turntable speed held up to 90 minutes
of music in technological terms Ars Technica notes they were seen as a minor miracle. The system was
exclusively owned by Chrysler came as an option in Chrysler Automobile starting in the 1956 model
year the albums were made under exclusive contract with Columbia Records highway wi-fi
seemed destined to be a game changer Ars Technica writes, It was innovatory a major talking point
arrived as the car market was booming as never before and it came with much press hype
they also had the backing of a leading motor manufacturer what could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out Chrysler was already backing off the product after just its first year it was only
available through the 1959 model year. There were several reasons that the concept failed. It had
to be installed at the factory, it couldn't be done after market. The machines tended to break
down and anyone trying to walk the floor next to a record player will understand how well the
turntables withstood bumpy rides. When they broke local repair shops were not equipped to fix them;
an exclusive contract with Columbia meant that there were a limited number of records available,
in other words, Ars Technica continues, “The in-car format of choice was not actually
delivering that much choice.” In 1960 RCA produced a competitor that could play normal 45 records
vastly increasing the choice of music available, but at just two to four minutes each, 45s were
not conducive to driving where changing records was a challenge. Buck Bennett, owner of Dallas's
Eight Track Museum explained, “They just had too many problems. No matter how hard they tried,
the records just skipped constantly. They tried making the tonearm heavier but a bump is a bump,
and it wasn't contained enough for the playing to be successful. They never really caught on.”
Lets face it, vinyl was just not a very good fit for a moving automobile,
but alternatives were on their way.
Magnetic recording tape, a method of recording information on a thin plastic strip was invented
in Germany in 1928. The first practical tape recorder using a cellulose acetate-based tape
coated with iron oxide particles called the Magnetophon was demonstrated in 1935. But the
invention had military implications and it was kept secret. In 1945, a 1994 edition of
American Heritage Magazine notes, “An electrical engineer with the US Army Signal Corps discovered
two magnetophones in the Radio Frankfurt Studio and brought the recording medium back to America.
After seeing a demonstration in 1947, Bing Crosby invested in developing a practical machine
as a means to tape his weekly radio show. The resulting products revolutionized the
entertainment industry in a number of ways. One development in 1954 was called the Fidelipac
which was used by radio stations to program things like commercials, promos and single song hits.
While only marketed to commercial radio, the Fidelipac, usually simply referred to as a
Cart which had a reel of one-quarter inch magnetic tape that rolled across an opening, was the first
commercially available audio tape cartridge. But a colorful and enterprising entrepreneur named Earl
Muntz saw potential. A car and electronic salesman months who went by the nickname Madman and was
known for outlandish advertising where he claimed to sell prices so low that he must be mad was also
a self-taught electronics engineer, he saw the potential in the Fidelipac for use in automobiles.
His design, officially the Muntz Autostereo but usually referred to as Stereo-Pak, had four tracks
rather than the Fidelipac two, allowing two stereoscopic recording tracks. A lever allowed
the listener to switch between the two, typically the two sides of an album. Originally selling for
between 80 and 170 dollars, with tapes selling for around three dollars and fifty cents, Stereo-Pak
was the first cartridge, he emphasized the “car” part, in advertising in-car stereo systems.
But there's a good chance that you have never heard of Stereo-Pak or four track tapes, and
that has a lot to do with Bill Lear, that guy that helped to found Motorola with the Galvin brothers.
In 1963, Lear had taken on another passion when he founded Learjet in Wichita, Kansas
and started producing the first business jets. Seeing the initial success of Stereo-Pak,
Lear engaged with Muntz to produce a system to provide audio inside his jets.
But technology historian David L Morton writes in his 2006 work, Sound recording -The Life
Story of a Technology, that he later decided to re-engineer the player and manufacture it himself.
He designed a slightly simplified cartridge that was cheaper to manufacture and that bypassed
earlier patents. With eight parallel tracks instead of four, the system was called Stereo 8,
but would be better known as Eight Track. Frank Schmidt, an engineer on Lear's design team said in
an interview with the website Eight Track Heaven, “He was interested in getting around the patents
that Muntz had. All the early development that was done using the Muntz cartridges.
We machined them and modified them, and added a roller to them. We had dozens of Muntz decks
and hundreds of cartridges. All our development work was done with them.” As for sound quality
Schmidt noted, “It was terrific! It was like nothing that had ever existed! We actually
brought the best of the LP home stereo system to an automobile. Nobody had ever done it.”
Bennett explains how Lear made the 8-track the in-car player of choice. “He's like, wait..my jet
customers love having music in the air, why can't I put this in cars?” Lear went out and lobbied
all the big auto manufacturers in Detroit and got them to introduce a line of 8-track players
in their 1966 cars. The very first 8-tracks appeared in the marketplace in 1965 for the
66 cars. To put it in context, the first Beatles 8-track offered as a new release was Rubber Soul.
Schmidt said of Lear, “Bill was a marketing genius and a fundraiser. While Muntz's system
might have been first to market,” Bennett notes, “The 8-track was truly the first mass consumer
car format.” Lear leveraged his connections with Motorola and the auto industry. Schmidt
notes that he was a personal friend with William Clay Ford. The player was built by Motorola and he
made a contract with RCA Victor to create a large catalog of recordings for distribution.
Bennett recalled, “If you bought an 8-track player for your car from the very first year
each car manufacturer gave you a free 8-track. It was like Ford presents the swinging sounds of 66,
and each company would do a new one every year.” The music was a pretty safe selection of greatest
hits of the day that wouldn't offend anybody. I don't think the Sex Pistols ever ended up on one.
Initially, Muntz's Stereo Pak competed, the large advantage of the 8-Track was that with twice as
many tracks the tape could hold more music, but often the actual recordings on a cartridge had the
same playing time. Muntz ran ads saying, “You get more, with four.” although Muntz was a salesman.
While the tapes were aesthetically similar the systems were not compatible, and so Muntz
started selling systems that included both four and eight track players combined. In the end the
largest difference was in distribution systems. An Audio Engineering Society History notes, “Muntz's
marketing and distribution arrangements were spotty at best. Relegating the four-track format
to the inferior status of a regional phenomenon, most popular in such locales as California and
Florida, but unpopular or unknown in many other areas.” On the other hand, a 2005 edition of
the music collectors magazine Gold Mine writes, “Ford's backing for 8-tracks proved irresistible,
effectively blowing away what opposition there was from other tape formats.” Ars Technica writes,
“Muntz's California based operation was soon no match for the international reach of Lear's team.
By the end of 1969 the Stereo Pak had packed it in.” Meanwhile from its official September
1965 launch onwards, the 8-track went from strength to strength. The Stereo-Pak became
an obscure footnote, and the 8-track became a game changer. By 1967 2.4 million players were in use,
by the early 1970s 8-track players were a common feature in most new car models,
and many were retrofitted with players made by a number of manufacturers. By 1975, 8-tracks
represented a third of the American record market and had become popular internationally.
And I can personally attest to the fact that that 8-track player in your car changed your life. I
still remember the first one that we had in a car in my mom's 1974 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon.
And like almost every other American we began our 8-track collection with the Columbia Record
and Tape Club, which would sell you your first seven 8-track tapes for just a penny.
Media historian Chad Childers wrote in the 2020 edition of the online magazine Loud Wire, “While
the radio gave you plenty of stations you could punch through to find something to listen to, the
8-track tape gave you freedom.” Bennett remarked, “It's hard to convince people who weren't around
then, but the 8-track was nothing less than revolutionary. In the context of its time,
it was the first time that you didn't have to listen to what was on the radio
if you didn't want to. You could listen to the Beatles, or Led Zeppelin, or Hank Williams.”
Bennett argued in a 2012 edition of Collectors Weekly that the format was a selling point.
“If you think about it, of the dozens of formats over the last say 50 years
it's the only one that's self-contained. A cassette has like three, four or five pieces
and when you lose two pieces you throw it away. Even for the beloved LP you've got the record,
the sleeve and the cover. The 8-track tape was just one object. You shove it in,
you pull it out and it's the exact size of your hand. I think people really responded to that.”
Notably 8-tracks were invented first as a player for the car, it took two years before companies
started producing in-home players under the understanding that people didn't want to mess
around with multiple formats. Since the invention of the radio the challenge was how to get in-home
quality and choice into the automobile. Now the automobile was transforming in-home hi-fi systems.
Bennett remarks, “Then the home players took off! People were listening to them at home and
in the car, and then they introduced the recording 8-track deck so you could make a mixtape at home
on 8-track. You could buy a new Led Zeppelin LP plus a blank 8-track tape for a buck,
and then throw the album on the tape. That way you'd have the album for home, and the tape for
the car. 8-tracks ruled popular culture, a 1976 episode of the tv show CHiPS focused on thieves
stealing 8-track players from cars, Ponche’s was even stolen. The player used in the police car
driven by the Blues Brothers in the iconic 1980 movie was an 8-track, as was the player in the
tv and music group the Monkees Monkeemobile, and BA's van in the A-team. The dashboard and
Tony Manero's 1964 Chevy Impala from Saturday Night Fever was covered with 8-track tapes.
It's not that 8-tracks were not without their issues,
while they could fast forward and switch tracks, they couldn't be rewound backwards.
They didn't do well in heat and could melt if left in a hot car. Sometimes the track would
end in the middle of a song and the song would simply fade out and then fade back in, something
that children said even back in the 1970s would elicit a few groans and headshakes. Parts did
wear out on the tapes which if they got stuck in the player were nearly impossible to rewind,
an issue that keeps some nostalgic 8-track collectors today from playing their tapes. A
person named Lulu complaining to the website 8-track Heaven said, “You can't use 8-track
tapes unless you have a book of matches, or a wad of paper to hold them in place.
I hated the little bastards!” Yet they were simply better than everything that had come before and
they transformed more than car interiors. Goldmine writes, “The portability of 8-track also made it a
firm favorite with the troops in Vietnam. Trudging through the jungle with a phonograph was not
practical, however a lightweight 8-track player with its hearty cartridges and a battery pack
was a viable option. The presence of music from home helped make the 8-track more than
just a consumer product, it was in danger of evolving into a product of iconic status.
So what went wrong? In the end 8-tracks were killed by a technology that predated them.
Compact cassette tapes had been introduced in the US in 1964, a year ahead of 8-tracks
but their initial use was for recording and playback, as their slower play speed meant
that their audio quality was not good enough for music. An issue compounded by the fact that
most cassette player recorders were built with high fidelity sound in mind. But that changed,
Morton writes, “When the first Dolby Corporation noise reduction system for cassette tapes made its
debut in 1970, the cassette tape truly began its transition to a serious high fidelity instrument.
Cassettes were smaller, unlike 8-track tapes they could be rewound to replay a favorite song.
They made recording your own mixtapes easy, and if they unspooled unlike an 8-track you could
easily fix them merely by using a pencil. Morton notes, “Recorded cassette sales, which had been
nearly non-existent in the 1960s, began to eat away at 8-track tape sales by 1975. And during
the next five years, met and surpassed 8-track tape levels.” Already, in 1979, one journalist
wrote an obituary for the 8-track calling it, “Unnecessary in the era of the cassette.”
And so we moved on. The cassette moved on to the CD, moved on to the MP3, moved on to streaming
music, and it seems like that era of the 8-track tape didn't last any longer than mini skirts,
white belts and crocheted vests. But that's a bit of a misconception, says Bennett, whose museum
closed in 2015. “8-track tapes went on sale in 1965, but they continued retail sales until 1982,
and continued mail order sales through record clubs until 1988. They lasted a
period of 23 years, and that period took me from my first birthday through my college graduation.
I guess you could say that 8-track tapes were part of the History Guys history, along with
millions of others. Childers understands,”With 8-track tapes,” he said, “you could finally play
a full record on a car drive whenever you wanted to. You were in control of what you listened to,
and it sure did sound sweet, with the windows down on a summer night.”
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