One of the readers had an interest to get a time period correct radio installed. At first the Blaupunkt radio in my car was considered a good option (his car is from 77/78). But in the Original brochure a different brand is displayed. It was found out it's a Voxson. When doing further checking I noticed a lot of this had already been discussed on the FChat forum in this thread:
Still it's unknown what the exact model is. On the picture it's clearly visible and reads:
"quadraphonic stereo" I wasn't able to find anything more on the internet on this model. The normal "8 stereo Voxson" is well available and documented. Does anyone knows more about this model or has one for sale?
update 27-11-2015: Found it, it's a Voxson Quadrophonic Stereo Q8
Although I have my radio complete now with all documentation I still had my search options running. So today I got an Ebay alert. There was a complete set for sale but someone had made a good offer and the listing is ended:
The advert did also contain a nice YouTube clip on the functioning of the radio. Something I had in mind to make as well. But this is no longer required, so here goes:
You might know I was still on the hunt for the original radio manual. I have finally got it. It was on offer on Ebay in Germany last week. And today I received it at home. I'm very pleased with it as I'm now complete on all the documentation. As you can see on the pictures it's quite a stack of equipment and not exactly a simple radio.
I even have the complete parts and repair manual with all schematics:
I now need to get some time-period music on a cassette. I have already obtained this MP3 cassette. So I can easily put digital copies on it via YouTube and play it in the car.
So, I now need to consider what would be appropiate music - next to my Fausto Papetti tapes. And I think I have found something that fits quite nicely. It was Sinterklaas evening in 1978 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas). And I was all excited about the presents we would get. My dad got a record and exactly that moment got captured on camera by mom. You can see me on the left with a huge smile and missing some teeth.
This specific record is still in my possession. The release is got called "de hits van nu - alle 13 goed!" which was very popular at the time.
As I digged up the record I took the time to play it on my Weltron 2007. Isn't that a great space age player? On this YouTube capture I'm playing Jean Michel Jarre. This happens to be another record from 1978. I'm actually quite surprised my mother bought this record back than (knowing she is more into the BZN genre). And I remember it was being played in the living room at the time as well. I like this particular record very much.
So I guess I have to put both records on cassette ... watch this space.
Yesterdays remark regarding the time period car radio triggered off a response. The person in
question submitted me an advert about vintage Grundig car radio’s. With the purchase of the 400 I was
lucky to have it equipped with the original radio. So for once I was not in
desperate need or searching for a matching radio. Usually they tend to be
upgraded with modern awful stereo’s which are not appropriate in my opinion.
Other folks tell me they don’t need a radio as they rather listen to
the sound of the engine, so why bother. I only want it to be
complete and do happen to appreciate radio’s and listening to music while
driving. So, hereby the picture of the radio.
One small issue though, the brand Blaupunkt is clearly visible but the model name is missing?Strange. So I still had to do a little research in finding out which model I
had. Where to start? The radio manual was missing and I did not wanted
to remove the radio – as I potentially could damage something. On Internet
(where else) I found the following website:
http://wegavision.pytalhost.com/blaupunkt.html containing a
very nice overview of Blaupunkt catalogues for various
years. Since my 400 is delivered in 1979 I had a look on that section and
spotted it. It was a Heidelberg Stereo CR Super Arimat:
It was a top of the range model (I didn’t expect any
different for a high-end car like this). Very cool. It does have ARI and honestly I had no idea what this meant. But now I do:
Furthermore I found the fully automatic sender search quite
cool as well. I can imagine this must have been quite advanced technology in
the late seventies. Not to mention the optional reverse tape winding. The Blaupunkt radio’s were awarded for their quality in the press. I got ahold of the following advert:
So what’s the story with that silly music cassette of FaustoPapetti on the picture you
might ask yourself. Before I was looking into the F400 I was focussing on
Maserati Indy’s. As such I got in contact with Candini as he had one for sale. Although I was only
making an enquiry by email I think I ended up on their distro. I totally forgot about it and earlier this year I
got an invite from them for some kind of exposition. I did not had any
intention to attend but it was a nice trigger to visit them during the IHWC
trip since we were staying in Modena this year. And so we did. We met both
Giuseppe and Marcello and to my surprise the green Indy was still for sale.
It was relocated at a different location for some minor fix. Marcello kindly
freed up time for us and guided us to the other workshop. We got a tour in
this workshop, which was quite impressive to say the least. As per tradition
I made a small slideshow of both workshops:
Also we got to see the Indy in real life. What a beauty! Of
course I went in the car to get a feel and to browse around. I noticed
the radio and the music cassette in it. I was very curious about what kind of
music an owner of such a car would listen to. To my surprise it was an
original cassette from 1970 by FaustoPapetti. Likely this must have been in the car since. In
order to memorize this I took a picture of it:
Funny enough one of the other guys took a picture of me when
I made that picture. They told me they
found it remarkable I was making pictures of these unusual
details.
As for FaustoPapetti, I never had heard of this bloke before.
But now I do:
Of course I listened some of his records on Youtube and could picture myself driving this Indy with the
easy listening saxophone music. Priceless. As such I had to have some Original MCs. Again this turned
out to be a small challenge but succeeded nevertheless.
As for the Indy it has been sold and is now put up for sale
again here:
