I found some old cassette tapes I recorded in around 1982 and plugged one into my 2005 Ford Taurus. Still sounds fine. Who else still has a cassette recorder in their beater and what year is the car?
What car is sporting the last cassette deck made?
- Thread starter Snagglefoot
- Start date
My wife's new 2023 Subaru has a CD player (when you get a manual transmission). These are pretty much absent from new cars options being a 40 year old technology - your cassette tapes are over Half Century old tech. Making (semi) hi-fi cassettes for the car use to be fun. I could even discern improved RCA unbalanced interconnects used in the process over the automotive speakers ( e.g: Cardas Cross, Monster M950i, XLO Signature )
I guess I am old tech now too!
I guess I am old tech now too!
In the late 1950s, some Chrysler Corp. cars came from the factory with record players.
According to this, the last was a 2010 Lexus SC 430.
www.nytimes.com
For Car Cassette Decks, Play Time Is Over (Published 2011)
According to experts who monitor the automotive market, the last new car to be factory-equipped with a cassette deck in the dashboard was a 2010 Lexus.
At least the cassette / CD combo was not as embarrassing.
My wife's old 2004 Mercedes ML350 had a cassette player.
So who else still has a cassette deck in one of their current cars?
I have them in two of my cars.
There are cassette players in all our vehicles except for the Camaro.
The Camaro has a Pioneer CD player I installed in the early 90's but the plan has been to go back to a cassette. I could never get the CD player to stop skipping. I even sent it in twice for eval and repair but nothing is wrong with it. I can drive over a pebble and it'll skip; just super stiff, factory suspension.
I've had a NIB Pioneer KEH-M5500 on the shelf forever. Just never found the time or ambition to do the swap.
I don't think the cassette player in the Lexus has ever been used.
The Camaro has a Pioneer CD player I installed in the early 90's but the plan has been to go back to a cassette. I could never get the CD player to stop skipping. I even sent it in twice for eval and repair but nothing is wrong with it. I can drive over a pebble and it'll skip; just super stiff, factory suspension.
I've had a NIB Pioneer KEH-M5500 on the shelf forever. Just never found the time or ambition to do the swap.
I don't think the cassette player in the Lexus has ever been used.
Cassettes are inherently unreliable, storage limited (music or sound time duration), and bulky. I made it a life mission to change over to CD-Rs the second they were available, then USB sticks the moment they were available, until today when bluetooth, Carplay, 3g, 4g, cell coverage, made all of the past stay in the past. Never looked back. I can still appreciate cassettes for the sake of old school technology, but chucked all of them long ago. I think the last vehicle I had with one was a 2005 Legacy GT or Outback and only used it for the aux input cable cassette workaround.
I have this in my 1984 Chevy Cavalier. My dad installed it when he got the car (new), which came with an AM only radio:
I think a 30-year-old cassette will play just fine, whereas the data on any 30-year-old USB stick will have long vanished.
I've had USB sticks fail after only a couple of years.
