MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG Midget and Sprite Technical - 8 track in midget?

Did MG ever offer any optional extras along the lines of a 8 track player?

I'm considering putting one in my midget to give it a real 70's feel :D

I have a 8 track recorder and some blank tapes (still sealed!)

Any thoughts?
R Williams

I doubt it

I don't think I saw my first 8-track until the early nineties and I was around in the 70s, it was all (Phillips type) cassettes for us kids

8-track was more of an American thing they have bigger cars, cassettes for Europe with smaller cars

Would there have been enough room in the radio and speaker centre consol for an 8-track player?

But of curse you'd had two stereo speakers so wouldn't need the single mono speaker radio consol anyway

First 8-track cassette I heard for Deep Puple's 'Made in Japan', an album of 7 tracks !

If I remember correctly it was - kerchung - somewhere in one of the tracks
Nigel Atkins

Dealers in the US probably added them as they were popular here in the 60's and early 70's
Phil
Phil Burke

Wow... UK was behind the times... I remember my (dads) 1st 8 track around 1975


I think we got the CDs in the early ninties


But im sure dealers added them

Id say go for it, I was thinking the other day that an 8 track with some old BJ thomas and Ann Murry might be fun for midget 50... but Im not going to do it.

Id think Ebay would be your best friend when it comes to all things 8 tracks

Might even add a soda fountian... we had one in our old ford tranino back in the early 70s....If I remember correctly ...it was basically a hidden spitzer bottle and a hose with a paper cup holder and little kool-aid envolopes of colored flavoring


Prop
Prop

They were very popular here too in the early 70s along with the normal cassette players. Maybe Nige is not old enough or perhapos has lead a sheltered life.
MG never fitted them but I suspect the odd dealer did as indeed a dealer would do absolutely anything you asked him to sell a car. (Which is the reason concours is such a scam!)

However I bought an 8 track for my Frogeye at that time and was soon so disappointed with damaged tapes that I gladly bought a cassette player to replace it. So a cassette player would be a "period" piece!

I have never seen a recorder so perhaps that could be worth a few bob!
Bob Turbo Midget England

My midget doesnt have a radio centre console, there is instead a console, with a gauge telling me the volts from the battery, the time and the cylinder compression (quite fun watching that one move when power is applied! :P)

The Kerchunk from the 8 trak is always in the middle of the one great song on a album as well!

My 8 track recorder cost me nothing as it was not in a fully working state, records both channels fine but was a pain when it came to playback as it would only read the left channel. The blank, still sealed tapes were bought from ebay for the grand total of £5!

Will probably do it just got to try and find a space for it as the midget is living up to its name on the space front.
R Williams

measure the distance from the end of the (inserted) tape cassette, to the back of the player. Compare this to the distance from the bulkhead to the shift lever in 1st and 3rd gear.

that will tell you how far you will need to install the player, under the dash

because 8-track tapes are so large, and usually stick out of the player so far, I'd be surprised if you could fit it in there. Or, whether you'll be able to change tapes without first selecting reverse ":o)

There is hardly enough room for a cassette player, most people use ugly spacers to make them fit in the stock console.

Norm
Norm Kerr

Ah, good old 8 tracks. I think I still may have an in car player and some tapes down in the basement. The came out in the middle '60s. I had one installed by the factory in my '67 Mustang and installed a few more in other cars I owned up until my last street rod I built back in '83. By then cassets were the in thing but I still had the player and all the tapes so why not.
I doubt if any ever were installed in Spridgets as they were pretty deep and there just wasnt much room in the center of the car. Some may have been hung from the dash on the passenger side though.
B Young

R Williams -
if you fit a ali passenger side parcel shelf you could fit the player above or below it - if you can reach the controls and not particularly safe whilst driving

>>Maybe Nige is not old enough or perhapos has lead a sheltered life.<<
sorry as usual I didn't put it well - I'm certaimly old enough (50) and not so much a sheltered life as growing up om rough council estates where cars didn't have 8-tracks - if you wanted a really nice car then you had to nick one for the night

I can't remember (could be wrong) really seeing and hearing an 8-track until around the start of the '90s

I think you can get 8-track recorders on eBay

Prop as normal made me laugh with an 8-track being ahead at anytime in history let alone 1975

CDs were widely generally available here well before 1985 but Dire Straits Brothers in Arms CD of 1985 really opened the market

When I first started buying CDs they cost £13.49. 25+ years later they cost £4.99 or less and are no longer compact
Nigel Atkins

Not only did I have an 8 track in my old Sp*tfire but I also had an adapter that would allow me to play those new fangled cassettes in the old 8 track system. This resulted in the worst of both worlds, stretched/chewed up tapes plus unwanted variable playing speed.
The thing about 8 tracks as far as I can remember is that once they reached the end, they would start all over again. I remember when atomatic rewind and then the holy of holies came with cassettes which meant that it would play the other side once one side had finished (or even switch sides at the touch of a button).
Gary & Gaps

>They were very popular here too in the early 70s along with the normal cassette players.

Yep - my dad's E-Type had one. I remember a compilation of hits of 1971.
Jordan Gibson

you can still get those adaptor things that looked like a cassette with a wire out of the back of it so that you can play portable CD player (or MP3 whatever that is!) through the car cassette or player

(nerd hat on, or is it pedant hat) cassettes and 8-tracks started about the same time

I remember it took me ages to convince my wife that one of her home recodered cassettes was dirting the heads on the car cassette player everytime she played it, wouldn't take my word for it as she thought I just didn't like the (very muffled) music and sound of it - I didn't - but it was dirting the heads so spoiling the sound of the following cassettes played
Nigel Atkins

I can never let a topic like this one pass without posting the attached photo. My buddy Bruce Morton did a stellar restoration of a '71 Midget a few years ago, and just for the heck of it, he combined several vintage audio oddments as seen... a Craig 8-track player, fitted with a cassette adapter, which was in turn fitted with another adapter that allowed him to plug in his portable MP3-compatible CD player. This arrangement allowed him to save MP3s from his PC to a CD and play them through the 8-track, sort of... with the result emerging from the speakers in the headrests of his MX-5 seats. Unfortunately, it sounded about like you'd expect. :-(

-:G:-


Gryf Ketcherside

Gryf, that's great, double down on the distortion! LOL
B Young

Just trying to remember some of the stuff I had on 8 track?

I think the last one I bought would have been Neil Young, Harvest! As I remember on one of my favourite tracks (man needs a maid) the 8 track was manufactured to change the track half way through this record, extremely annoying to say the least!
I later became a converted "Southern man" enthusiast, after buying the cassette of "After the gold rush" which probably along with Alabama of the Harvest album must be two of the key tracks of our time!
That is of course unless you wear a pointy white mask!
Robert (Bob) Midget Turbo

Gryf get that photo and your post removed as quick as possible before Prop sees it

I'd have thought in the period that 8-track and cassette converter combination would have persuaded anyone who saw it to buy a cassette player instead
Nigel Atkins

Ahh, I remember the Craig 8-track with synthesized quadraphonic I had in my 72 Chevelle... And using a cassette adapter in it to listen to the Wendy/Walter Carlos Sonic Seasonings album as ripped off of my friend's vinyl.
David "Loved that thunderstorm!" Lieb
David Lieb

Also trying to think what tapes I had; Bad Company, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Slade and Santana.
I'm sure there were more but it was such a long time ago I can't remember, 37 years probably - how scary is that, my God I feel old!

Les
Les Robinson

Nope - they didn't - but you can fit whatever you want - my bgt now has a bluetooth super cd amped mobile phone mp3 etc player in it - thank goodness!!!

As for the rest of it - don't actually know what one of them looks like - and never heard of any of the music - wow - that's sooooooooooooo old stuff :)! (Apart from the stuff that they are sort of still around in a kind of "aren't they dead?" way!)
rachmacb

I never owned an 8-track myself (a fact for which I am eternally grateful), but my roommate had a table-top 8-track player when I was a freshman in college back in '74-'75. That device introduced me to Dark Side of the Moon... usually played in a dark room, with headphones. Just when you'd really get sucked into the mood, the track would change on you.

But we were happy then...

-:G:-
Gryf Ketcherside

I had a quite a bit of music on 8 track, favorites were the sound track from American Graffitti and Iron Butterfly. The latter really sounded good in my '63 Chevy Impala, Ahh the good old days. LOL
B Young

Had a Radiomobile 8 track in my '68 Midget in the 70's - had to mount it on a ply isolator as they were all neg earth ('68 positive).
Mounted it tight to under side of dash - no clearance problems then. Still have it somewhere together with another Radiomobile combined radio/8track - centre folded in to take the tapes - still have that somewhere but i think the 'string' think that moved the tune indicator fell off !

8 tracks were a pain as they tightenened up when old and played slow until you 'operated' on them and then restuck the silver track change foil tape back together.
Had Zepellin, Floyd, Deep Purple,Slade, Lindisfarne,Moody Blues oh the list just goes on and on.

Memories !!!

R.

richard boobier

Well, I must confess that I DO have an Akai reel-to-reel recorder with cassette and 8-track recorder decks built-in. R2R still works, haven't tried the others for a while. I do know that the last time I tried to play an 8-track tape, the metal tape that serves as both splice and changer fell off. Probably the case with most period tapes these days...
David "nostalgic" Lieb
David Lieb

wow - reel to reel with built-in cassete and 8-track !!?!!

in the same unit??

that's gotta be worth posting a photo of

wooden veneer case and brushed sliver?
Nigel Atkins

Oh God

now I wish I still had my in-car record player to show y'all

It played (sometimes) 45 rpm single and E.Ps

Amazing but so bloody awful on bumpy roads

(I can't remember the make, might have been Radiomobile)

I bought several bare chassis from a Radio Spares place in Brum and managed to get one of them working, but the name, as so often these days escapes me...)

Screwed to the parcel shelf of the Imp in a plywood case it was

bloody awful
Bill 1

David, bought mine in the PX in Sasebo, Japan back in '70. Akai, wood case with brushed aluminum front and 8 track in the side. Even has built in speakers. Still there on the shelf in the basement.
B Young

I fondly remember driving about in my high school buddy's 1965 Ford Country Sedan circa 1974 when the tape player ate our copy of Led Zeppelin II. We pulled into the local record store to replace it and while browsing heard Lou Reed's "Rock n Roll Animal" on the store's speaker system. We left with a copy of that, and nothing has ever been the same since..
Richard Reeves

This thread was discussed between 28/03/2011 and 31/03/2011

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG Midget and Sprite Technical BBS is active now.