So you have a classic or collectible car and you would like to listen to the radio but it doesn’t work or it doesn’t have the features you would like. What can you do?

We have Mike Frenchek from Retro Radio Restoration. Mike, Welcome to Goss’ Garage.

MIKE FRENCHEK: Thanks for having me here.

PAT GOSS: Alright, now. What in the world do we have here?

MIKE FRENCHEK: This is an old AM radio out of a 1939 Plymouth. It’s an old radio made by Philco.

PAT GOSS: Ok, now suppose we have that car, we have this radio, we want to make everything bone stock… can you make it work?

MIKE FRENCHEK: Absolutely. Any radio can be restored. The tubes are available, the component parts are available, it could be brought back to original looking, as well as to the performance.

PAT GOSS: Alright, but a lot of the people that I know, they want the original look, but they want modern features. What can you do there?

MIKE FRENCHEK: Oh yeah, many people want to have their latest tunes in the cars when they’re driving. What we can do is upgrade the electronics. We use an Aurora board that’s manufactured here in the states. It’s an AM/FM board, 45 watts per channel, the original radio was only 3. It provides the input for an auxiliary, if you want to hook up an MP3 player or an I-Pod directly. We can add Bluetooth to it, as well as a USB port to it if you want to use a flash drive.

PAT GOSS: OK

MIKE FRENCHEK: You can put your music on a stick.

PAT GOSS: You mention Bluetooth, and a lot of Bluetooth stuff we can control from our smartphones.

MIKE FRENCHEK: Absolutely. You can take your smartphone, tie it in, connect to the radio and all you do is push the screen and instantly you start to have your music playing on your radio.

PAT GOSS: Ok, I like that. Now, you mentioned 3 watts to 45 watts. That means we’ve got to do something with the old antique speakers. 

MIKE FRENCHEK: These speakers won’t handle it.

Pat Goss: That one won’t handle anything.

MIKE FRENCHEK: Not at all. But you should upgrade your speakers.

PAT GOSS: Ok, that’s going to make your package complete. Mike, Thank you very much.

… And if you have a question, or a comment, drop me a line. Right here, at MotorWeek.