The thread on “first album” got me thinking about the old days and the 8-Track tapes I had in my car. My first car (well actually my second, as the first lasted only a few months and I traded in on a new version–total price NEW was $1,500) was an Austin American. My first was a 1969, badly used and second was a new 1971 (and this is probably the worst car ever made by British Leyland!)
I installed my own 8-track player and some speakers behind the back seat in the package tray. My faithful companion tapes were:
Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed
Leo Kottke - 6 and 12 String Guitar
New Riders of the Purple Sage - first album
Pink Floyd - Meddle
Savoy Brown - Street Corner Talking
Thinking about that now, I’m impressed with myself for having a bit of breadth in my music tastes considering I was a know-nothing 16 year old.
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AceRimmer
(Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!)
2
I’m actually impressed you managed to keep an 8 track player running longer than an Austin.
Both are feats of a miraculous nature.
Not my picture, but this was it. Basically an orange color. I still didn’t learn my lesson. I traded the 71 in for a new 1973 MG Midget. Better than the Austin, but still lots of issues. I then went in the opposite direction. I got a bottom of the line, straight-6, 3 speed manual, /2 ton GMC pickup truck. It never had ANY issues.
I even installed the 8-track player in the 73 MG! The most important tool was a pencil for rolling back the tape within the cartridge when it messed up.
1 Like
AceRimmer
(Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!)
6
Ha, the ubiquitous HB.
Never leave home without it.
Never had a car 8 track but same deal with cheap cassette players… FF eats the tape…lol.
But back on track(8) nice selection of tapes there I agree.
Actually I realize I’m misremembering! The pencil was for the later cassettes. There was no way to fix a problem 8-track. The best thing about the 8-track tapes was that they simply played over and over with no intervention from the user. Later cassette players had some version of that, but not the ones I had.
By 1973 I had added, Jerry Jeff Walker’s Viva Teralingua, and Leo Kottke’s My Feet Are Smiling. In late 73 or early 74 I acquired a home 8-track player/recorder and started making home-made mix tapes from my albums, which I thought was very cool at the time. Nobody I knew had an 8-Track recorder.
Oh you Brits! Here in the US back in 1973 the only British made cars were in someone’s garage up on blocks and waiting for a that elusive wiring harness to arrive
Meanwhile those of us with good sense were driving American made cars. I was driving a black 1968 Plymouth Belvedere with a classic Chrysler slant 6 engine.
and listening to 8 track tapes I recorded on my trusty 8-track tape recorder. I lost count of how many times my tape deck was stolen. It happened so many times that I could install a new tape deck in about a half hour. Besides my home recorded 8 tracks I had a bunch of regular 8 tracks that I “acquired” from the Columbia House Record Club. Fun times!!
By the time my beloved Negrito (the name I gave that big black Belvedere) was ready to give up the ghost I drove it a local junk yard and showed the very reluctant proprietor the still purring and indestructible slant 6, he coughed up $25 for my troubles. Bald tires, broken motor mount, pad locked truck (boot for you English folks), inoperable driver’s side door and a green passenger side door (taken from a junked car after poor Negrito was in a fender bender) plus dents and scratches galore. Yes the car was an absolute mess but that slant 6 engine purred like a kitten and still had at least another 100,000 miles left in it.
At least it has the steering wheel on the proper side
My father had a Jaguar sometime in the 1970s (or 1980s), the car burned oil, a lot of oil. The car was parked in parking lot while my father was at work and some debris fell from the roof of the building next to the parking lot , landed on the Jaguar and totaled it. My father could not have been happier! Bought himself a good old American Corvette after that, and again, he could not have been happier.
I worked with someone in the 1980s and he had two Jaguars, probably 78 or 79 XJ6 from my memory. Identical year and model, but different colors. I asked him why he had two identical cars. His answer was one to drive while the other one is in the shop.
