Every car I or my wife ever owned prior to about 1979 had AM-only radio. But keep in mind that the peculiarites of the FM signal, combined with the mountainous+coastal terrain of Northern California made FM superfluous in the ealier days anyway.
Mostly we listened to AM radio, with clear-channel signals probably bounced off the ionosphere or the water after sundown. The favorite from the late fifties on was Wolfman Jack -- "It's the Wolfman, comin' atcha, honey!"
(For those of you who don't know or don't remember, Wolfman Jack was a real DJ, and in fact appeared as a DJ in the movie, American Graffitti.)
True story: Wolfman Jack operated out of studios in the LA area, but the actual station was XERB, owned and operated across the border in Mexico. In the US, the max AM broadcast license you can have is 50,000 Watts, clear channel. In Mexico, I think it is whatever you can afford.
XERB must have been broadcasting at least 500,000 Watts clear-channel AM out of Mexico. In the summer of 1960, I was working as a boat boy on a salmon troller out in the Gulf of Alaska. When we would shut down for the night, usually sometime between 8 and 9 p.m., I could get Wolfman Jack wall to wall!
Speaking of accessories, does anyone else remember, either as a kid or a young adult, the purchase and installation of after-market seat covers? Now THERE'S a niche market that died out, probably never to return.
Bill
