'68 Bee Radio Question

My '68 Bee has a knob type Motorola radio in it that came in the car when I bought it in 1975 from the original owner. I found this strange since all the ones I had seen were the thumbwheel type. The bezel plate is pebble grain like 69 rather than ribbed. There is nothing checked on the fender tag under the "R" position. Was this car accidentally ordered without a radio? The sales info I have says nothing about a radio being standard. This was an "Expedite Sold Car" ie customer ordered car. Maybe a dealer or owner install?

correct, a radio was not STANDARD equipment for a 1968 Super Bee

there was an OPTIONAL AM radio for $61.55 and an AM radio w/stereo 8-track tape player for $196.25

around 11% of 1968 Super Bees were radioless (radio DELETE) when new

looks like an aftermarket late-'60s/early-'70s Motorola

Thanks for the info. So my guess is the car was likely ordered without a radio by mistake? Factory air, stripe delete and radio delete seems like an illogical combo.

it would make more sense that the original owner, relative or friend worked at an electronics store or Motorola & the factory radio was intentionally not ordered.

if it was a "mistake" the dealership would've simply installed a Chrysler Corp. radio

Back in the day when a buyer was allowed a lot of input on how their car would be built, some were ordered without the optional radios/tape players if the buyer wanted to do their own or didn't want one.
When something is optional and not included equipment, it's not a Delete, though that's become a popular phrase probably because it's shorthand for correct terminology.
As 6bbl says, a mistake would most likely be handled at the dealership, unless the buyer was credited instead.
To know exactly what happened, you'd have to talk to the original owner. Heck, maybe they just hated thumbwheels!
Some folks (like me) didn't really care for the stripes back then, and I still don't. Some folks gotta have AC if the temp is over 75.
Fun trivia: the guy who claimed to have pushed that through was Jerry Gross; he was a marketing type who I worked with at B&M in the '70s.

Orig owner would be in his 90's now, so unlikely I'll ever know rationale. He worked at Hill AFB when he bought it, so maybe he was just trying to cut costs enough to help offset the cost of A/C. Last time I talked to him was 1980 and I was showing him all the things I was doing to fix up the Bee. He then stated to me "I can't see why anyone would put money into a car like that", then he hopped into his shiny Datsun 610 wagon and motored away. A real visionary!

Definitely an aftermarket Motorola. Radio Shack and the like used to offer kits to retrofit most cars with an AM radio cheaper than the factory could. So, if the car had A/C, I too would speculate the original owner was trying to offset the cost of the A/C.

A buddy of mine had a '68 Charger R/T that only carried two options:
AM/8-track stereo and the Tach w/ Clock.

No Console, No Stripe, Manual Steering & Drum Brakes.

Whomever ordered the car originally just wanted to monitor their engine speed and rock out to their Blue Cheer 8-track.