The previous owner butchered my dash to install an 80's style radio. Does anyone have any recommendations for an aftermarket radio? I see ads for RetroSound and one other (can't remember the name at the moment). Any other products out there worth a look?

d1

 

I own the retro-sound and I'm pretty pleased with it. How badly did he screw up your dash, cause the main appeal for me with retro-sound is that I would have to modify the stock dash?

 

I went to classiccarstereo.com to replace mine, and I must say that I am very satisfied. It went right into the original fittings for my cutlass with no cutting of the dash. At first glance, it even looks like an old stereo.

 

It really boils down to choice and how bad your dash was trimmed. Can you post a pic of the dash so we can see the direction to send you.

 

I have an "80s style radio" that I installed back in the 80s and it fit perfectly with no dash hacking. It's a regular old shaft mount radio (the kind that was designed to replace the factory shaft mount radio) so I am guessing someone installed a DIN style radio in your car and cut out the shaft mount hole areas.

If your dash is already hacked, the damage is already done and I would use a radio that fits whatever hole is currently there. I don't know how you would get a shaft mount radio to fit if the dash has been cut out and the mounting hole areas are gone.

 

Probably a DIN radio then. They just slot cut the holes to account for the width between shafts. And then put a faceplate over the whole deal to hide the ugliness...

 

That was done a lot by amateurs because they did not know the shafts can be adjusted for width. Do you have a picture your dash?

 

Not a DIN radio then as those don't have shafts and require a large rectangular opening the same size as the radio itself.

Sounds like it was a shaft mount one with a different spacing between the shafts and either they didn't know about adjusting the spacing as oldcutlass mentioned or it was a cheaper non-adjustable radio.

So if it's just that there are slot cuts, you might be able to work with that. Pictures would tell.

 

Here are pictures of the radio with and without the faceplate. The square opening was also widened as well as the openings for the radio shafts...

d1

 

Well that's not as bad as I imagined it was - trust me, I have seen a lot worse.

So is there something wrong with that radio? Your first post asked for recommendations for an aftermarket radio, which that is, so I'm wondering what you're looking for?
Do you want something with a cassette player (don't laugh - think of the folks with 8 track players), CD, USB, iPod, etc? Lots of choices depending upon what your goals are.

For my car, I have a radio very similar to the one in your picture because I have a convertible so I got a radio that no one would want rip my dash up to steal. I use a cassette adapter to play MP3s from a phone/ipod, it has separate bass/treble instead of tone control, fader control, and 4 channel RCA outputs for the amp under the seat. It's everything I need in a radio and nothing anyone would want to steal.

 

You can probably get a stock radio back in there but you would have to get creative with filling in that opening. The ***** will probably cover the shaft slots.

 

The radio I currently have does not "tune" correctly and it is hit or miss if I can keep a station in tune for more than 3 minutes. And I would like to use bluetooth or at least plug in to my iPhone to play music on the car speakers. I don't need a cassette/CD player or anything like that. I have been known to take 700 mile round trips with this car, so a decent radio will come in very handy.

A stock radio would definitely fit, but there would be gaps galore considering they made the center hole bigger and slotted the insets where the shafts mount; I would need a custom face plate to cover that mess.

 

There are still shaft style radios available. They range in price from inexpensive to $$$.