The Evolution of Playing Music in Your Car

The way we listen to music in cars today looks nothing like it did when we were kids. As a child of the late 1980s, my formative experiences listening to music in my mom’s wood-paneled minivan were shaped mostly by CDs, with the errant, dusty cassette tape thrown into the mix on occasion, along with regular blasts from the oldies FM station.

By the time I got my driver’s license, I relied almost exclusively on burned CDs, obsessively compiled on my dad’s desktop computer from MP3 downloads. Today, most of these modes feel quaint relative to advancements in digital music player technology.

To honor the audio technologies of our past, we’ve traced the evolution of playing music in your car, from hissy AM radio to 8-track players to the digital music revolution and beyond—and we didn’t forget that questionable dashboard turntable, either. (Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.)

1930s: Early Car Radios

For the first decades of the existence of mass-produced cars, driving was an experience not meant to be soundtracked beyond the sound of the engine. But in 1930, brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin of the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation introduced the first commercially available in-car radio: the Motorola 5T71, a portmanteau of “automotive” and “victrola.” The system used battery-powered vacuum tubes and sold for around $130—massively expensive for its day. Driving with music was a fairly controversial concept at the time, a distraction on par with texting while driving today. Still, Galvin sold millions of car radios, ultimately changing its name to Motorola, Inc., the genesis of the telecommunications company that we know today.

1950s: Hi-Fi and FM

Despite the growing versatility of in-car radio options by the 1950s, your soundtrack was still left up to the mercy of the airwaves. The monophonic system was tweaked and expanded upon in the coming years. AM was the dominant radio mode at the time, but in 1952, German company Blaupunkt released the first FM car radio. In 1953, Becker’s Mexico radio broadened the in-car radio’s versatility, with both AM and FM capabilities and the ability to search through stations.

Chrysler attempted to change this just four years later in 1956 with a brand-new automotive listening option: an in-car phonograph called the Highway Hi-Fi, mounted on the bottom of the dash and wired directly into the car radio of certain high-end Chrysler models. At the flip of a switch, a miniature turntable slid out, upon which proprietary, Chrysler-made 7-inches (exclusively featuring artists under contract with Columbia Records) with about 45 minutes of music could be played. Now, the Highway Hi-Fi seems totally misguided: With the bumps associated with driving, the records skipped like crazy, and the system was phased out within a few years, keeping the AM/FM system as the dominant in-car playing mode.

1960s-1970s: Tapes on Tapes

After Chrysler’s failed Highway Hi-Fi experiment, no other grandiose attempts at an in-car music system stuck. That is, until Earl “Madman” Muntz, an engineer and entrepreneur, pioneered 4-track cartridge technology (called the Stereo-Pak) and saw its potential for automotive. He introduced an inexpensively manufactured, sexily marketed stereo tape player, the Autostereo, which could play entire albums without skipping. This gave drivers control over their listening experience for the first time. Inventor Bill Lear (who worked on the Motorola radio decades earlier) expanded upon the 4-track technology and introduced Stereo 8 technology—better known as the 8-track cartridge system—commercially in 1965. Meanwhile, Philips launched the compact cassette in 1964, while the 8-track exploded in popularity due to its inexpensive cost.

Initially, the two had comparable sound quality, but the cassette tape’s quality steadily improved and, by the early ’70s, it easily bested the 8-track. Perhaps most importantly, the cassette was the most customizable format for in-car listening (and, with the advent of portable cassette players like the Walkman in 1979, for listening in general). Finally, individually created playlists were a possibility, and so began the age of the mixtape—a practice still beloved today.

1970s-1980s: Pumping Up the Volume

With the rise of cassette tapes, the steady phase-out of bulky vacuum-based amplifiers, and the advent of in-car stereo set-ups (as opposed to single-speaker, monophonic systems), the 1970s also saw the beginnings of what is now known as the aftermarket—the sect of the automotive industry involved with parts and accessories after the initial sale, allowing car owners to customize their cars themselves. Custom stereo outfits started to become a popular option for drivers who wanted systems with more power than cars originally came with. Companies began to sell pull-out cassette receivers and higher-quality speakers that drivers could install themselves.

Breakthroughs in the quality of car sound systems during the 1980s approached the capabilities of home audio set-ups—Pioneer introduced the Supertuner with 1976’s KP-500 cassette player/FM tuner, boasting advanced circuitry, improved reception, and super-sensitive tuning capability. Cars began to feature multi-speaker stereo systems, with individual speakers outfitted on the driver side, passenger side, and rear deck, allowing for the sensation of surround sound. Most advancements in the car audio industry were now occurring in the aftermarket, rather than through stock systems.

1980s-1990s: The Rise of the CD

Philips and Sony developed prototypes for the compact disc (CD) in the mid-to-late 1970s, but due to widespread skepticism at the digital format’s commercial potential, CDs and CD players didn’t become commercially available until 1982. In 1984, Pioneer changed the game by debuting the world’s first car CD player, the CDX-1. It drastically improved upon previously available sound quality—discs held up much better than tapes over time.Plus, the CD’s ability for instant track-skipping was far preferable to time-consuming rewinding or fast-forwarding. During the late ’80s and mid-’90s, multi-disc CD changers became popular, giving drivers the ability to switch between up to 10 CDs at a time.

2000s: MP3 Players

A handful of early experiments with portable digital audio players were unveiled in the late ’90s, but everything hinged around Apple’s introduction of the iPod in October 2001. Though later models would dwarf the first-generation device’s five GB hard drive, it nonetheless represented a revolution in portable music technology. With MP3s on the rise, CD sales began to steadily decline and cassettes disappeared almost immediately. But it took a while for in-car audio capabilities to catch up to the digital revolution. Initially, there were very few options to connect the influx of MP3 players to car stereo systems until the mid-2000s.

2000s-2010s: Satellite Radio

After five years lobbying the FCC to allow satellite radio to be deployed, and then five subsequent years raising the $1.6 billion required to launch three satellites into orbit in 2000, Sirius Satellite Radio effectively created the satellite radio industry single-handedly. XM Satellite Radio launched its first two satellites the year after, effectively altering the way we experience radio. Today, the service offers a wide variety of music, talk, news, and sports stations, and it’s commercial-free (with a subscription fee). Still, Sirius XM’s subscriber base has steadily grown over the last decade: As of July 2014, Sirius had 26.3 million subscribers, thanks to the company’s partnerships with a variety of auto makers and dealers, including long-term deals with General Motors, Ford, Toyota, BMW, Bentley, Volkswagen, Kia, Nissan, Hyundai, and Mitsubishi.

2010s: Streaming Services

Satellite radio’s main competitors in recent years are Internet-streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, whose rapidly growing popularity hasn’t fully manifested into the automotive audio industry yet, though that’s beginning to change. Last year, 135 car models from 26 auto makers came off the lot with Pandora Internet Radio capabilities built into the dash, a trend jump-started by Pioneer in 2010 with the first Pandora-equipped head unit. BMW and MINI have begun to integrate the even newer streaming service Spotify into several of their newer models. The latest in the music-auto integration is last November’s partnership between Spotify and smartphone taxi app Uber, allowing Uber customers to stream music of their choice during rides by linking their Spotify account to their Uber account. Slowly but surely, car audio is beginning to gain ground in catching up to the music tech advancements of the last decade and we can only expect developments to accelerate in the coming years.

Present: The Digital Revolution

With the aftermarket industry leading audio technology breakthroughs for decades, thanks to brands like Pioneer, Sony, and Alpine, our in-car music experiences have only gotten louder, clearer, and more dynamic. Everything you need for the most individually customizable, all-encompassing in-car listening experience is now available via USB, Bluetooth, or aux cord connection.

In 2011, Pioneer debuted the first smartphone-based head unit, the iOS-connected in-dash AppRadio, which supported a handful of iPhone apps. Starting last year, Apple began to roll out CarPlay, an iOS-based system that integrates iPhone apps with your car’s digital system, allowing for previously unrealized, hands-free control. Soon afterward, Pioneer became one of the first aftermarket in-dash multimedia systems to provide CarPlay, which allows drivers to upgrade cars they already own with integrated smartphone connectivity.