Hello,

I was wondering what type of radios they used in 1968 for the cutlass I have seen transistor and wonderbar was the wonderbar the am/fm radio or was the transistor a am/fm also. Or was the wonderbar a factory ad on? I have the stock radio that's am but would like to install a am/fm that is period correct as I noticed the transistor has oldsmobile on it is there away to take the face plate off of it and install it on the wonderbar?

 

The wonderbar wasn't used in A-body cars in 1968. The options were the AM deluxe pushbutton radio (U63), AM-FM mono radio (U69), and the AM-FM stereo (U58). You could get any one of those radios with a rear speaker (U80). Of course, the stereo radio came with a rear speaker. The problem with the wonderbar radios (available in "B" and "C" body cars) was the attachment on the passenger side of the radio (heat sink?) that interfers with the mounting brackets in "A" body cars. I've heard of people moving that attachment to the other side of the radio (as they are in radios for "A" body cars) but I haven't actually done it, or seen it, myself. My car came originally with an AM radio with front speaker only. When I restored my car, I found a factory AM-FM radio with the rear speaker option and put it in. It sounds great, considering its age and technology. As I recall, all the radios were "transistor" back then.

Randy C.

 

You could have your AM updated to new AM/FM electronics, I'm sending mine off soon to this guy.

http://www.turnswitch.com/radio1.htm

 

I think that by 1968, all car radios, Wonderbar or otherwise, were transistorized. My grandfather's '64 Chevy Bel Air had a transistor radio. I remember him exclaiming every time we went for a ride (I was 7 years old) how neat it was that the sound came up the moment you turned it on. The original AM radio in a '64 Jetstar 88 I once owned was transistorized.