Porsche 356 Radios. A potted history of sorts....

[Rich Oakley]

About fifteen years ago, I was searching for an original Blaupunkt radio for my 1961 Beetle. In the days before the internet, this wasn’t an easy search! Very few people in the UK seemed to know about these particular valve radios, but I eventually tracked one down at a classic car show. I restored it and fitted it to my Beetle. For some reason, this led to a crazy fascination for these radios and I started acquiring Blaupunkts dating from 1949-75 at a fair rate of knots! Using my knowledge gathered over a number of years, I can give you a little in-sight into the relationship between Blaupunkt and Porsche and hopefully help you choose the correct radio for your car. I can also offer advice on repair, restoration and parts. I hope somebody out there finds this useful and informative!!

Part 1- Pre-A Porsche.

A decade before the transistor was made available, many electronics manufacturers were starting to realise that the post-war ‘boom’ in car sales would mean a considerable demand for valve-driven in-car entertainment. The big names (mostly German and British) such as Telefunken, Blaupunkt, Schaub-Lorenz and Philips had spotted this potential in the market and started producing wireless sets for vehicles. At this time, due to different dashboard layouts, most radios produced were ‘bespoke’ for a particular vehicle. Just look at the gaping radio hole in a pre-A dashboard- it’s exclusive to the pre-A, Beetle and pre-1955 VW Deluxe Bus.
In late 1948, Philips was the first company to offer a radio that would fit into this aperture. It was pretty basic and called the Philips ‘Elomar’.


It was far from cheap and cost about a fifth of the price of a new Beetle!

Through 1950-52, several other manufacturers released radios to fit this Porsche/VW aperture….

Lorenz…


Telefunken...


And Blaupunkt…


To the Pre-A owner, these radios proved to be quite popular and with the Porsche and VW dealerships being far less formal in those early days, some dealerships started acquiring these radios and selling them to purchasers of new Porsches as ‘dealer fitted’ accessories.

Around 1952-53, car radio manufacturers were starting to realise that it wasn’t such a good idea to be producing one specific model of radio for a small number of vehicles. Some standardisation was needed across the board and this seems to have taken place in or around 1953. Car manufacturers started building cars with a new standard-sized aperture in the dashboard and a variety of radio manufacturers adhered to this standard, producing new radio units with 130mm diameter between the knobs and a central 95mm width faceplate aperture. The new ‘thru-dash’ configuration was used by VW, Mercedes and a number of other car manufacturers…



But what it you owned a Pre-A and wanted the latest radio technology in ’53 or ’54?? You still had a great big hole in your dashboard!! The problem could be solved by purchasing an adaptor plate from your friendly Porsche dealer. This would allow you to fit a new standardised radio plus speaker into your dashboard’s cavernous hole!



Part 2 (post-'55) will follow shortly.

[cubist]

Cheers Rich very helpful

[58A - 71E]

Great post - looking forward to part 2 to compare what's in mine

[912uk]

Yes I have a 54 Radio that came from a 356 Cab it's complete and I was told working but one I am not bothered if it is..as these radio's at the time where going up in price almost by the hr so I grabbed when i could.

Interesting was the backing plate the same colour as the body then Richard? I am going to paint my the same colour as I think it looks best that way.

[Rich Oakley]

Interesting was the backing plate the same colour as the body then Richard? I am going to paint my the same colour as I think it looks best that way.

The backing plate was usually ivory in colour. The one in the picture above is a reproduction plate.

[912uk]

I'm going to dig out my radio and take a photo of what I have

[Rich Oakley]

Part 2 of the story. (1955 onwards)…

With the introduction of the 356A in 1955, Porsche adopted the modern ‘thru-dash’ configuration, allowing the fitment of a standardised radio. Here’s a nice chopped up dashboard complete with ‘thru-dash’ radio holes…


The Models
For the 1956 model year, Porsche officially joined forces with Blaupunkt and started offering Blaupunkt radios as extras in their factory accessory brochures. Alternatively, you could still order a Blaupunkt radio from your Porsche dealer and have it fitted at a later date. Whether these dealer sold radios had an official Porsche ordering part number or not, I am unsure.
So, what were your radio options back in 1956 then? Four Blaupunkt models were available to start with: Bremen, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Köln (two other Blaupunkt models were available in 1956- München and Hamburg, but these were never offered by Porsche).
The Bremen was the most basic model being an AM only radio featuring just Mediumwave (M) and Longwave (L) bands. The Stuttgart was also an AM radio, but featured a Shortwave band in addition to MW and LW. (note: it’s obvious what the ‘L’ and ‘M’ pushbuttons stand for, but did you know that ‘K’ stands for ‘Kurzwelle’- German for ‘Shortwave’). The Frankfurt radio was a serious piece of kit featuring Longwave, Meduimwave and UHF band (FM)! The Köln model went one step further than the Frankfurt and offered an auto-search feature on the AM wavebands!! It's a pity that hardly any stations were being broadcast on the FM waveband at this time!!

The Köln, Frankfurt and Stuttgart models all looked like this…

…except for the fact that the Köln had 3 pushbuttons 1 x U, 1 X M and 1 x L, the Frankfurt had 1 x L, 2 x M and 2 x U pushbuttons and the Stuttgart had 1 x L, 3 x M and 1 x K pushbuttons. (The one shown above is actually a Hamburg model and therefore not strictly a Porsche radio).

The lowly Bremen model looked like this…

…with just two ‘art deco’ style waveband buttons.

US variants of these radios sometimes had different markings on the buttons, such as 'FM' and 'AM' as well as the actual frequencies in MHz. I'm not 100% sure whether these US variant models were factory fitted or dealer fitted only.

I have never seen a UK Porsche Accessory pricelist from the 1950’s but I used to own a ’58 or ’59 Porsche pricelist from the US that listed these radios between $100 to nearly $200 depending on model.

The Design
Notice in the above pictures that both radios have Blaupunkt embossed faceplates. Some of these ‘thru-dash’ chrome faceplates were plain and didn’t have this logo stamped in.
There were also two different types of thru-dash faceplates. Type one, you would fit to the radio and then insert the radio through the rear of the dashboard. Type two, you would fit the radio without the faceplate and then slip the central chrome faceplate over the centre section of the radio.
Type1:


Type2:


Blaupunkt radios of this era were produced with either White or Green lettering on the frequency dial. To match the lettering of the Porsche clocks, the Porsche factory always specified green dial radios when ordering (see above).

The type of tuning knobs used by Porsche were refered to as 'Tulip' knobs. The ones in the above pictures are not correct for 356s (they're VW knobs). The tulip knobs look like this...


From 1956-59, all of the radios featured a very heavy external vibrator power supply that was required to produce the high voltage to drive the valves within the radio. This would be mounted separately under the bonnet of your Porsche.

These external power amp boxes contained a removable 6 volt vibrator unit that could be swapped for a 12 volt unit if required.

By the end of the 50’s in-car radio technology was becoming a little less cumbersome and changes were afoot in 1960….

(Part 3 to follow).

[hot66]

great info

[mycar]

This is fascinating, I can`t wait for the 60`s edition

I`m just in the process of ordering a a Becker pinstipe from koenigs

Maybe I should wait a bit, is there Becker info in the pipeline ?

Regards Mike

[Rich Oakley]

I`m just in the process of ordering a a Becker pinstipe from koenigs

Maybe I should wait a bit, is there Becker info in the pipeline ?

Regards Mike

Hi Mike,

Unfortunately, my knowledge of the Becker radios is virtually zero, I'm strictly a Blaupunkt kinda guy.

I thought the Becker pinstripe faceplates were for Mercedes cars and not Porsches?

Rich.

[mycar]

Hi Rich,
I had a feeling that might be the case especially when you talked about the Porsche/ Blaupunkt relationship from early on

I saw a few Becker Europas in early 911s at Silverstone this summer
and I just like the look of the pinstripe facia

That said I would welcome your view as to what Blaupunkt would be "right" in a 1968 911

In anticipation... Mike

[Rich Oakley]

Hi Rich,
I had a feeling that might be the case especially when you talked about the Porsche/ Blaupunkt relationship from early on

I saw a few Becker Europas in early 911s at Silverstone this summer
and I just like the look of the pinstripe facia

That said I would welcome your view as to what Blaupunkt would be "right" in a 1968 911

In anticipation... Mike

Hi Mike,

I'm sure the Becker Mexico, Europa or Grand Prix would be period correct in a '68 911, I just don't think that they would have been fitted with the pin-stripe faceplate. Becker also offered chrome, ridged surrounds for their radios. It may be worth speaking to Rainer at Koenigs- he will have a better insight into the use of Beckers.
A Blaupunkt Frankfurt or Mannheim with black pushbuttons and thru-dash faceplate would suit your car very nicely if you decide to go down the Blaupunkt route. I will hopefully get around to writing some stuff about early 911/912 radios in the appropriate sections at a later date.

Rich.

[defianty]

Thanks for this info Rich, an interesting read. Looking forward to the rest

[mycar]

Thankyou Rich, I look forward to it.

Don`t yer just love this forum

Mike.

[58A - 71E]

So it looks like mine is a Bremen...



it also has a chrome faceplate with the Blaupunkt letters as per your picture, interesting that it doesnt have the external power supply. Is there a mod for these then Rich which mine could be incorporating? The car is still using the original 6v electrics

Cheers