Dear all,
Car radios are not something I know the first thing about, but until a couple of years ago I worked with a colleague named Roger Smart who I remembered being involved. Annoyingly, he reached the magic '65' and decided to retire from my company (which is not radio/electronics related) which was a loss as I enjoyed working with him. So it was a great prompt for me to email him, wish him happy New Year, and ask what he remembered about Radiomobile etc.
I copy here his reply verbatim, which is as accurate as he can remember it, but as he says, it was a long while ago! You will see it is in Roger's typical tongue in cheek style.
Hope it is of interest!
best wishes
Duncan
Quote:
Dear Duncan
I worked for Radiomobile part of Smith's Industries at Cricklewood, North London for the two years up to September 1974. I was responsible for the production line which made top of the range 1095 (I think?) models from scratch. (Marketed as 'the radio Rolls Royce fit') .We had four production lines each of which made a different model from scratch, making in total 10000 units a week. Whilst I was there we used a number of Motorola manufactured components such as capacitors, transistors and the like but at that time there was no particular relationship between the two companies. (I guess Motorola still make components today?)
My understanding was that there was a time when Radiomobile made sets for Motorola. Anecdotally, the Motorola sets were 'seconds' from our production lines with a Motorola dial on the front. (Seconds were low gain sets and for example cracked printed circuits repaired with solder ). I believe this was very probably true because during my time we also sold 8 track and cassette players which were bought in from Japan tested, tweaked and fitted with a Rdiomobile badged front.
I'm not sure how or why Smith's got into Car radio, but it was quite likely an accident. They bought up Daintymaid kitchen furniture accidentally in my time when intentionally buying a cabinet maker to make clock cases! My first car radio was a valve Radiomobile radio which was clearly labelled
S Smith and Sons so Radiomobile were part of Smith's fairly early on. ( In my time it was SI or Smiths Industries).
Everything fell apart dramatically for Radiomobile in 74 because of the sudden boom in Japanese cars which came with a radio fitted as standard. We had completed a huge warehouse build early in that year which suddenly filled up with new sets which no one wanted or needed. The factory at Cricklewood was all but closed down although there was a rump left behind making a cheap radio using integrated circuit technology but the business didn't last long maybe 3 or 4 years. I think the cheap sets were branded Courier.
Best wishes to all
RS
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