Did my 60 come with a radio?

[Donald H.]

I've been trying to figure out if my car had a radio when produced. There is no indication of where an antenna bottom bracket would have been mounted to the trunk side of the wheel well. I can see no patchwork either inside the trunk or inside the wheel well. I have attached a picture of an inside view of the driver side rear wheel well. I've cleaned it pretty good and can't see any patching to the fiberglass.

Also, the antenna hole in the fender is off center of the top line of the fender. Of course, than may not mean anything (photo included).

I got a Wonderbar radio in a box with the car, but it was never in the car, i.e. previous owner bought it separately.

If there was every an antenna bracket mounted to the inside of the fender, I would think there would be remnant of a screw hole on inside our outside of the fender well or a patch.

What do you think? If no radio, what would you do, i.e. leave it without a radio?

[Philip P.]

Re: Did my 60 come with a radio?

Don
I looked at mine and the hole that is in your fender seems to be off a little to the inside, may be just the picture. The center of hole for mine is 4 3/4 inches from the taillight housing on the outside and in-line with the center of the light assembly. I am sure my car came with a radio as all the bracket and cables are/look original.
Attached are a couple of pictures of the antenna and mount. As for installing it or not well, I do turn mine on to make sure it works. Seems there is only talk radio in my area.
Phil Porter
1960

[Donald H.]

Re: Did my 60 come with a radio?

Don
I looked at mine and the hole that is in your fender seems to be off a little to the inside, may be just the picture. The center of hole for mine is 4 3/4 inches from the taillight housing on the outside and in-line with the center of the light assembly. I am sure my car came with a radio as all the bracket and cables are/look original.
Attached are a couple of pictures of the antenna and mount. As for installing it or not well, I do turn mine on to make sure it works. Seems there is only talk radio in my area.
Phil Porter
1960

The antenna hole in mine is definitely inside of center unlike your. The hole is 3 5/8" from the taillight. Also, where you bracket mounts inside the trunk to the back side of the fender, I can find no sign that there every was a bracket there on mine. I wonder if they used some sort of jig to locate where the antenna hole should go on the production line?

It would be cheaper for me to restore without the radio as I will need to have the radio restored first and it need new knobs and face.

[Russ S.]

Re: Did my 60 come with a radio?

I currently have a 58 in the shop that I am working on. The antenna hole is in the center of the tail light housing as the above picture. It appears to be original.

[Philip P.]

Re: Did my 60 come with a radio?

Don, Also the radio equipped cars had the ignition shields and all of the grounding on the exhaust, motor mounts and capactiors, static collectors in the wheels. According to Nolan Adams (page 260) of his restoration book "If a Corvette is not radio equipped, none of the parts or installation procedures in FOA 102 apply".
I would think if you had most or all of these items installed, then I would believe it to be a radio equipped car.
Phil Porter

[Donald H.]

Re: Did my 60 come with a radio?

Don, Also the radio equipped cars had the ignition shields and all of the grounding on the exhaust, motor mounts and capactiors, static collectors in the wheels. According to Nolan Adams (page 260) of his restoration book "If a Corvette is not radio equipped, none of the parts or installation procedures in FOA 102 apply".
I would think if you had most or all of these items installed, then I would believe it to be a radio equipped car.
Phil Porter

Well, that would be a good indication, but I can't really trust anything. The car was sort of a rolling basket case. I.e. got lots of old junky parts in boxes with the car. The things according to F.O.A. 102 were as follows:

Ignition shielding - None was on the car, I got some parts in the box, but top and one vertical piece was missing.

Capacitors - As I recall, I did not find any radio capacitors installed, i.e. there was no capacitor on the oil/battery gauge cluster. No capacitor on the generator. None on the coil or voltage regulator.

Speaker - had a speaker grill, but no speaker installed.

No antenna cable installed to the trunk

The only thing on the car when I took it apart that is part of F.O.A 102 in the AIM was the ground straps on the front engine mounts.

So, not sure what this all means.

Again, the main reason I think it may not have come with a radio is the fact that I can't see any trace of an antenna mount in the trunk. And if there was a screw/bolt hole in the wheel well at some time, someone did an excellent patch job. Even to the point of perfect match of the original fiberglass color. If I put a light source against the wheel well on the trunk side I can't see anywhere there was any patching done on the wheel side of the wheel well.

Don

[Russ S.]

Re: Did my 60 come with a radio?

A perfect match on the fiberglass repair is HIGHLY unlikely especially in an area like the trunk/inner qutr panel. Matching resin color is possable but hard to do and even if you match color the repair should still be quite noticeable under close inspection.

[Philip P.]

Re: Did my 60 come with a radio?

I think you have a good case for a radio delete car. It would make your car about 1 of 2095 out of 10261 built that did not have a radio installed by the factory making it kind of rare.
You can hook the radio up to a speaker antenna and 12 volts see if it works they are worth $$$ working or not.
Then it also depends on what you want to do with the car.
As they day my 2 cents.
Phil Porter

[Donald H.]

Re: Did my 60 come with a radio?

OK, so now I am inclined to build out the car with no radio. I see the comment in Nolan Adam's book on page 260..."If a Corvette is not radio-equipped, non of the parts or installation procedures in FOA 102 apply."

Can someone with knowledge of 58-60 with no original radio confirm this statement completely?

I went back and looked at pictures as I took the car apart, and it did have some of the grounding straps on it. It had the front engine mount ground straps, a ground strap on the exhaust to frame at the X member, and it had a ground strap on the accelerator link to the intake. If these are really ONLY installed on a radio car, then I am still puzzled

If I go with no radio, do any or all the grounding straps get installed?

Thanks,

Don