The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay The Radio Bench 57' Radio Decisions

This is sort of OT here but I'll ask anyway. I have two radios for a 57' Chev, a PB duluxe and a Wonderbar. OK, they are both car radios but here's my question: can the car radio be used in a TF truck and can someone recommend someone to rebuild the Wonderbar and update to AM/FM and the other latest goodies? I would like to sell the pushbutton unit if it has any value to one of the StoveBolt gang before attempting to sell it elsewhere.

saw this guy at a show, looked reputable and capable, has a US address and gets to US shows
57 car - 57 truck ... the difference in size of face and spacing of knobs would require dash modification, although it would fit in the space behind

Bill

You probably would be much better off having something that was made for your truck. The 57 Chev car is a very popular model but I don't know how that affects the value of your radios. You could check ebay to see what they go for.

The 57 radios where angled in the dash, trying to install it to your truck dash would not look good! The wonder bar is a two piece radio ,you'd have a real mess installing it ,In 57 they built a hybred, it had a transistor output and low voltage tubes, this was a one piece push button radio this might be the one you have. It was such a piece of junk that later on in 57 a two piece push button radio came out .
As for value , I do very little sales and service on 55-57 Chevy Passenger radios, I'll only buy the 55-56 manual tuning and that's for parts , I met a man at flea market that had a 57 Wonderbar he try to sell me I said I didn't want to buy it, he took one of my cards then called me at home and tried sell it again to me ,I said to him you sell it and I'll repair it! just put my card with it ! GOOD luck I too think that eBay would be a good place, don't put any money into it! sale as is .

Bill,
were the hybrid radios with the low voltage tubes a bad idea or just that model?

Fred

They had there problems and never sounded as good as the radios with the tube outputs , but to be fair they where a lot smaller as more dash space was being taken up with new accessories, an required less current to operate, less parts and cheaper to build. All this look good to the auto manufactors, But the old all tube radios like the old trucks had a charm about them, to the people that understood them. Once in a while when I did flea markets some know it all would come by and tell me these old radios where "BOAT ANCHORS"this stuff really rubs you the wong way! but I use to have a radio from the 30's playing ,offen someone would not believe how good it sounded.
What really drives the industry ,is how cheap can we make it! does anyone out there really care what modern cars or trucks look like ? Remember the BIG previews of the new models ,now many of you can work on your own car/truck [modern one] at home? How many iteams do you throw away a year ,because it's not worth repairing? and you cann't find anyone to repair it!
Well it's time for me to get off of my soap box