If you grew up four to five decades ago, your idea of infotainment in your parents’ cars was a lot different from what it is today. Forget even a VHS of Cars in the back seats of the minivan; as children, all we had to look at was whatever was visible through the windows, and the audio portion of the not-entertainment was whatever came through the static between 5 and 16 on the radio dial, as determined by the parent behind the wheel – and we didn’t even know what those numbers meant.
Hopefully you didn’t have a General Motors car with that built-into-the-windshield antenna that couldn’t get a station even if you were parked next to the transmission tower. Look at that Chevette radio pic below; you can just hear the scratchy reception and CHOONK noise of the push buttons.
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Some of us were lucky enough to have family cars that got FM as well, perhaps even in stereo, but only the richest kids experienced pre-recorded music. That’s right, an actual tape deck in the car itself!
Car makers started putting tape players into dashboards around the mid-sixties, with Ford being the first in 1965. Often, they were standalone things that pumped sound through speakers on the rear deck, providing surprising bass from the massive trunks in old land yachts.
These optional accessories were rare, likely because they weren’t cheap, and people didn’t see the value. How could a car salesman get you to check the option box for a fancy eight-track deck?
The answer was demonstration tapes: something packaged with the car’s logo and featuring a potpourri of different kinds of music to show the potential buyer how magnificent their life could be for just a few extra bucks on each monthly payment. Here are just a few.
At Least None Of The Songs Got Cut In Half Like On Most 8-Tracks
One of the older ones I found was this “Fancy Colors In Sound” 8-Track from Buick, as these huge cassettes were the primary media for cars up through the seventies.
A lot of real bangers on this one, particularly Carol Burnett and whoever Andre Kostelanetz is. One of the tracks is Oye Como Va from Carlos Santana, which seems a little bit heavy for an Electra 225 owner in 1972. That’s sort of like putting System Of A Down on a compilation for a Lexus.
Here’s a later Buick demo tape. I’d probably select that disco A Fifth Of Beethoven to cruise down I-95 in my new Regal, or maybe put on Theme From S.W.A.T. if I wanted to really squeal the tires like I was in a Kojak-style undercover car.
A 1979 tape gives you some Toto to rock out to, but I think that Lou Rauls would be better to chill on the maroon crushed velour seats.
Shove a Pencil In It
By the ’80s, the cassette had replaced the old 8-Track so car makers had to follow suit. Here’s a late ’80s Oldsmobile test tape that kicks it off with the There Is A Special Feel In An Oldsmobile song, and then rolls into pop tracks. Based on the artist selection of this and those earlier Buick tapes, it seems like Neil Diamond was on GM’s payroll. Toto likely was as well, here singing what an Oldsmobile owner might consider to be “world music.”
Don’t worry; if you look at the song list on the case, the entire other side is classical for the typical Olds 98 Regency, most likely a family doctor or owner of an accounting firm, a real “I could afford a Cadillac but that’s too showy” type.
Mopar owners could show off their Infiniti I Premium Sound Systems with An Introduction To Chrylser Audio Systems, which I hope was narrated by Ricardo Montalban (“rich, substantial bass”). The tape then segways into pulsating Kenny Loggins, after which auto reverse would switch you into Gloria Estefan followed by a bunch of classical that was far more befitting of your New Yorker Brougham.
Did You Get Fingerprints On It, Or Are We Just On A Bumpy Road?
Nothing deserved a demonstration more than a new-fangled compact disc player, especially when you sometimes had to move around all your crap in the trunk just to get to the damn discs. Chevy was ready to show you how those little silver records gave you quality digital sound with a demo that, sadly, did NOT include Bob Seger doing “Like A Rock.” What the hell?
At least you got Sean Penn’s brother doing his one hit at number 2, David Lee Roth at the top of his game on track 7, and what I’m assuming is Mr. Mister strongly and repeatedly encouraging you to carry a laser down the road that you must travel at track 11.
General Motors got its money’s worth out of Mr. Mister, since Broken Wings appears on a 1990 Cadillac Style demo disc. Wait, didn’t that dude drive a ’58 T-Bird in the video?
With No Apple CarPlay, You Might Want That CD Player Back
Demo discs continued for a lot longer than you might think; our Thomas Hundal recalls a promo CD for the Acura RSX that featured Good Charlotte’s Motivation Proclamation.
Naturally, today you can’t even play a disc in a new car, which has obviously been the case for a while, but that doesn’t mean brands aren’t eager to show off how awesome their sound systems are. How about that head-exploding THX noise from a movie theater?
We know for a fact that a recent Member’s Rides included a reader’s 2012 Lincoln MKZ that had a THX stereo unit with a demo mode that plays the bone-shaking THX sound right out of the multiplex theater. Technology might have changed, but we still need to blow people away with our car tunes.
The downside of purchasing these recorded media players back in the day was something that our parents still have post-traumatic stress about. With their newfound tape and CD players, they often bought into this crap:
Maybe it’s a good thing that we can stream whatever we want now without fear of unwanted, unasked-for, full-price cassettes or CDs showing up in the mailbox.
If there are people out there who collect air sickness bags, then I can imagine that at least a few people are stockpiling old car stereo demo recordings. If so, I sure hope they have a disc with the Ride Pontiac Ride song on it to blast in your 1989 Trans Am. Here’s the big question: if audio demo discs existed today, I wonder what the various brands would put on them?