8-Track Tapes

The younger generation today rarely gives much thought to listening to music while in their cars, even on long trips. They can listen to Apple Music or their playlist on their smartphone. Those of us who have been around for many years may have had cars that did not even have a car radio. Maybe it had a radio, but it was AM stations only, and you could only pick them up about 50-80 miles out of the city, depending on how strong the broadcast signal was (day or nighttime). When FM stations became more popular, an AM/FM Stereo radio became an upgrade option.

So even with the more expensive radio and many radio stations in larger cities had increased their broadcast signal strength, you still had to find a new station in the next town and one playing the kind of music you liked. If you were traveling alone or the person on the passenger side was busy, it became a distraction to have to search for another station. Chrysler offered an option in some more expensive cars for a record player mounted under the dash that could play LP records. Very expensive and with many problems, especially on rougher roads.

The Stereo 8 Cartridge was created in 1965 by a consortium led by Bill Lear of Lear Jet Corporation, along with Ampex, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Motorola, and RCA Victor Records (RCA—Radio Corporation of America). The 8-track tape is a magnetic-tape sound-recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, which antedated the 8-track system, surpassed it in popularity for recorded music. One advantage of the 8-track tape cartridge was that it could play continuously in an endless loop, and did not have to be ejected, turned around, and reinserted to play the entire tape. After about 80 minutes of playing time, the tape would start again at the beginning. Because of the loop, no rewind is needed. The only options the user had were play, fast forward, and program (track) change. The 8-track tape format is now considered obsolete, although some collectors refurbish these tapes and players, and some bands issue these tapes as a novelty.

Several companies produced units that could be installed under the dash and the music played through the car speakers. They were sold with an installation kit where many people could install them, or places like Sears or other stores that sold radios or car speakers could install them. If you had a home entertainment system that also had an 8-track player, you could play them at home or on the road.

There were big sale offers from record clubs where you could join for $1 and get many free tapes if you agreed to buy one tape every month for a year. You did not know in advance which tapes would be on the monthly lists. Those offers were just too good to pass up.

The 8-track tapes were replaced by cassette tape players, then by CD players, and now many cars just have a radio system with Bluetooth interface and voice controls. Only those old enough to have owned an 8-track player in their car have memories of a time they would like to visit again, if only for a few days.