My buddy and I put a new tape deck in his Polara, then he bought me A&W for doing the install.


I'm in love with my friends' car. '71 Polara 4-door hardtop. I call it "The Plain Brown Wrapper". Body-color steelies with dog dishes, black bench inside; Tuff wheel, he has plans to upgrade to the Police Certified 140mph Gauge cluster and oh yeah, it's motivated by a 440 Six Pack that he managed to hide under the stock hood.

I've envisioned this Pioneer FM/8-track unit in the car for ages. Finally located a good deck and refurbished it. The hard part was finding a bracket but I got lucky! Today we started the install. Still have to hide the speaker wires a little better and maybe upgrade the speakers but it just looks so cool. Figured you guys would think so, too.

I recognized that deck as a Pioneer. My little brother had very similar style one in his '68 Fury Fastop. I seem to remember 3 or 4 configurations of that type.

To my knowledge, there are three that share this chassis. One is tape only, the next up the range is this one with FM & Tape, and then a top dog with AM, FM and tape.

I wanted this chassis specifically because the face angles up to face the driver/passenger. The way the dash is styled in this car, a flat-faced tape deck would be quite out-of-reach for people sitting in the front seat.
And, this is a TP-800, basically the same innards as the famous TP-900 "Supertuner". The FM section in these radios is legendary and the tape section is quite robust as well. I had a TP-900 in my Gremlin for YEARS and it never failed me and would pull in radio stations CLEARLY from 800 kilometers away.

TP-900's are the ones with the round dial for the radio. They go for HUGE money on ebay. I finally broke down and sold mine for $325 just because I couldn't resist that kind of money. All my 8-track decks are Quadraphonic anyway. Stereo is so 1967. :P

Looks awesome ! Tape deck and the car . . . . love the way that face is angled pretty much exactly like the dash - like it was MADE for that car !! . . . sweet !!

Cool.
I usually don't like much aftermarket stuff stuck on my cars but I'm a sucker for period correct things like that.

My thoughts exactly! That's why I looked specifically for this deck for my friend.



Agreed! You still feel like it's the mid-70's when you hop in this car but now at least have the modern convenience of FM stereo and a tape player that adds more to the look and feel of the car. There's nothing I hate more than a really nicely restored car that has a K-Mart cassette deck hacked into the dash.

I dig it.

I inherited a 32 gallon garbage bag full of 8 tracks, mostly classic rock, and have nothing to play them on. Something like that would be fun.

What a cool car and because it's period correct I love the tape deck!!

If there's any way I can help you, please feel free to hit me with any questions. I don't have much for sale right now in the way of tape decks - this border closure has really stymied this hobby. I have an Automatic Radio "El-Cheapo" deck that needs to be tested, and I also have a Craig Powerplay slide mount that needs repair (one channel is dead).

But luckily for you, all the sources for parts and repair are south of the 49th.

Barry's 8-track Repair is the ONLY place you should go if you have a deck that's worth repairing. YES. He is expensive. YES. He is eccentric. But he's done FOUR decks for me now and his work is nothing shy of magnificent. http://www.barrys8trackrepair.com/

At this point, most tapes are between 40 and 50 years old. THEY ALL NEED TO BE REPAIRED. Don't risk having rare tapes get eaten!! Replace all splices. That is the most common failure point. It's never the player, it's ALWAYS the tape. Also, all the foam pads at this point are done. Win-Gib replacements are the best and easiest. They come pre-cut, ready to rock. Yeah, they're about $2 per pad, but in my experience with literally thousands of tapes, they make life so much easier. They also sell the metal sensing foil and splicing tape. http://www.katestrackshack.com/

Here are my collections of Quadraphonic and Stereo tapes. These are all my keepers. I probably still have several hundred more for trading or selling!

Does Barry's work on old cassette player decks from the early 70's? Thanks