By James Chevrette
Retro radios have been gaining some notoriety lately. The new Pioneer retro “cassette deck” launched in Europe in May has been featured in over 21 publications, 16 Facebook groups, and it won over 24,000 likes on Instagram in less than a month.
(There’s been no word from Pioneer yet on whether it is bringing its cassette deck look-a-like radio to the US).
Collector cars (at least 30 years old) represent 16 percent of the 275 million registered vehicles in the US, according to Hagerty, an automotive lifestyle and insurance company. “The collector car market has grown exponentially over the last two decades,” reports Hagerty.
One Blaupunkt rep told us retro-head unit sales represent 15-20 percent of his total Blaupunkt head unit business.
Companies are taking advantage of the growing classic and collector car market with vintage-styled radios.
RetroSound just announced it is shipping its Liberty DIN radio designed to “repair old radio installations.” The radio, previewed last fall, offers a design that can restore a car’s classic look, even if someone’s cut a traditional DIN hole in the dashboard. The Liberty radio fills in the DIN hole while returning the dashboard to a more era-specific radio with modern features. The Liberty head unit includes three styles of knobs to match the factory design, while adding Bluetooth, amplifier pre-outs, USB and satellite radio.
RetroSound by Retro Manufacturing, adds modern features to cars from the 1950s through the early 2000s. It keeps the “faceplate” the same for a given unit, but offers three different bodies (called “motors”). The motors allow a choice in adding HD Radio, 25 x 5 RMS power, SiriusXM capability and subwoofer output. Here’s a selection of RetroSound radios:
Blaupunkt offers five models of retro radios, including a unique speaker that fits older vehicles without ideal stock locations. The radios focus mainly on the older Porsche, Mercedes and VW customers. An example is the Frankfurt RCM 82 DAB retro units starting at $499. A video showing the radio can be seen here.
Here are some other estimates on the size of the US collector car market (again, for vehicles over 30 years old).
- 43 million: Hagerty data tells us around 43 million cars in the United States fit the Hagerty definition of a collector vehicle (16 percent of the nation’s 275 million registered vehicles).
- $2.2 billion: This is the total amount of sales from North American collector car auctions in 2021.
- $1 trillion: The combined value of those 43 million collector cars represents an estimated (and) astonishing $1 trillion in total insurable value.
There seems to be a market for retro radios that match the styling of classic interiors. Most of us in car audio have fond memories of 1969 Mustangs or Camaros, but these cars are 56 years old now! The next generation of car audio enthusiasts might consider vehicles from 1980-1995 as classic cars. Is your store including this next generation of customers?
