matchek

Hello, thinking about upgrading the 67 Old Cutlass 442 radio and speakers with one that has bluetooth. Will most of the generic radio off of Amazon fit? There are some nice ones less that $100 but don't know if they will fit.

Also, is there anything special about the speakers? From my research the dash speak is a 4X10 inch. and the rear is a 6X9 inch. Is a separate amplifier necessary? New wires? Thanks.

jaunty75

Give us an example of one.

Modern aftermarket radios are of the "DIN" or "Double DIN" size, and they don't fit in the older, shaft-style radio openings.

Something like this, which you can get for $30 at Amazon, will not fit unless you cut the dash opening. But then you've permanently altered the dash and can never make it original again.




You can get something like this at Amazon or other vendors (Crutchfield, for example) that is designed to fit into older style radio openings, but they're not under $100. This one is $279. That's not bad in the grand scheme of things, and they will fit into your existing dash opening.

This one has Bluetooth and USB connections.






There are services that will rework the innards of a vintage radio to keep the original look but have all modern electronics behind it, and some people go this route. But it can be fairly expensive at several hundred dollars or more to have done.



I have a '67 Delta 88, and I faced the same problem. The original radio, which was AM only, was totally dead. I wasn't as concerned with having the most modern connections, so I bought a 1980s-era Audiovox aftermarket radio, shaft style, for $20 at a swap meet. AM/FM/Cassette. Works very nicely. I do listen to satellite radio, and this will work with that because you can set the satellite receiver to broadcast to an FM frequency and pick that up on the vintage radio.






As far as speakers, you will probably want to replace those in your car with whatever ohm rating is required by the radio you put in. The wiring may or may not need to be changed depending on its condition. Wire doesn't usually wear out, so it's probably ok to use, but remember that the original wiring often consisted of only one wire to the radio instead of two, where the second wire was simply a ground to the car's chassis. A modern radio, or even a radio like the 1980s one I bought, requires two wires to each speaker.

vickycar

check out retro sound, put one in my 67 cutlass looks and works great and they have what you need with good customer support

oldcutlass

There are still some shaft style radios out there... see Amazon link below.

jaunty75

Be careful on that page. Most of those radios won't work. Only the Retrosound models, which is the one I showed in the second photo above, will work in the old-style radio openings on vintage cars.

A radio like this, which is on that page, LOOKS like it has shafts so you might think it would fit, but that's only because it has two ***** where the shafts would be. This radio will not fit in an old style opening.