Does anyone know where to get a working sapphire I or sapphire II radio for a reasonable price? At The Samba online, a restored sapphire I goes for US$ 250 and a sapphire II for US$ 750! Is there anyone in Australia who sells/restores these radios?

Is there a reason why you want a sapphire ? I would look for a Blaupunkt instead as most will have AM/FM and jacking port, German quality.
Easier to find restored on german ebay but will cost about $500 AU including postage. Will be lucky to find restored in Australia any cheaper.

should be an AWA for aussie or a Phillips

are you keeping the Ghia 6volts or converting to 12V

VW54,

Thanks for the advice. From reading on the web, I thought a 63/64 ghia would've been fitted with a sapphire radio, produced by either bendix or motorola. I have probably been reading too many US websites.

Am planning to keep the car as a 6V. Do you have any information/pics about the Phillips & AWA radios? Would you know where to get one? Is there anyone in Australia who sells/reconditions them?

yes too many yank mags for sure

I know of a AWA but will have to check out the dash hole radio size to see if teh push button fits

Hiya KG,

Were I you, I would not get too hung up on the Sapphire. There are a couple of reasons for that, one of which you already seem to know. The early big box Sapphires cost an arm and a leg. Blaupunkt has been suggested as an alternative and that's interesting because........back when these things were selling new the Sapphire was considered to be the base (or cheap) model. You could upgrade to a Blaupunkt. Nowadays, at least here in the States, the Sapphire seems to be the more desireable of the two. In any event, cost for both these radios are very high.

And there is also this........VoA (Volkswagen of America) contracted with both Motorola and Bendix to produce Sapphires for American distribution. VW did not install radios at the factory for vehicles intended for the North American market. Instead, they left the entire business of radios to their dealers here in the States. That meant a little extra profit for the dealers. So, most VWs here in the USA (if they had radios) had Sapphires installed as a point of purchase decision.

Although you may have some Sapphires in Oz (have you seen them down there?) I'm thinking that any you have seen would not have been officially sold by VW or its dealers since the whole Sapphire thing was an American market deal.

I have six or seven Sapphires on a shelf out in the shop. All of these however are of the small box variety found in 68 and up VWs, like so...............

68AutoBug,

I have the original owner's manual for the vehicle, which makes no mention of the radio and has no pictures of it. I also have a brief brochure for accessories dated July 1963, with a beetle on the cover. I assume it was acquired by the original owner. I. It mentions 5 options for the radio, but doesn't mention any specifics. Do you think Australian delivered Karmann Ghias were fitted with Blaupunkt radios, or do you think the radios were sourced locally, or is it a mixture of the two. I note that with Blaupunkt you have mentioned 5 brands, which corresponds with my brouchure.


Bookwus,

I think the Sapphire radios look the best in the Ghia, because they sit flush with the dashboard. I am leaning towards the Blaupunkt (if its the correct radio for the vehicle) largely because the Sapphire radios were US market only. Another problem is that the Sapphire I which is easier to come by is only AM. Sapphire IIs which are AM and FM are extremely hard to find and are expensive. I have only found an old ad online and it sold for US$1000.


I have posted a pic of the Sapphire radio!

As Dave said, Australian-sold vehicles had their radios dealer-fitted, regardless of whether they came off the Melbourne production line (Beetles, Type 3s, Kombis) or were fully imported (Ghias).

VW dealers supplied and fitted quality Australian-made radios as official VW accessories. Australian-made radios of the time had the frequency band printed with the local stations - BL, GB, UE, KY, CH, SM for Sydney for example, and similar for Melbourne (whatever happened to 3XY?)

Vintage radios are common at auto swapmeets. Buy a copy of Australian Classic Car or Restored Car magazine at your newsagent, and check the ads - there are also places that sell and restore them.

Here's a page from the Lanock Motors accessory cataogue from 1961:

And another

And another.

Phil74Camper,

Thanks for posting the pics of Australian fitted radios. Anyone got pics of radios for 1963/4 model year?

Here's some from a slightly later VW accessory catalogue - about 1965/66 I think.

BTW - you won't find any Australian radios of the 1960s with an FM band selector. The military was the only user of FM frequencies from 1947 until 1961, when all FM frequencies were closed to prevent clashes with TV bands. The first FM broadcast stations did not begin until 1975 (ABC). Commercial FM stations did not appear until the early 1980s.

Nice pictures there, I've had a few ovals with the AWA Cruiser radios in them. They are pretty bulky, need to be supported well. I can't say I have actually tried, but they may not actually fit the standard radio hole in a ghia dash, can anyone confirm?

I bought a AM only Blaupunkt radio from a place in Spain which fits the hole nicely. It was a model designed for the early 60's 356s which had the same dash hole size.

The only Sapphire radios in Australia have probably come in with a complete car. I'll take a photo of the radio tonight and post it up.

Angus

Here is the radio, a Blaupunkt Hamburg. I got it from a place in Spain a few years ago that does up old radios. There are FM radios as well, but like Phil says above that wasn't available in the early 60's, and I wanted to keep my car pretty correct, it is a low mileage matching numbers etc vehicle.
I can dig out their contact details if you are interested.

Karman54,

Thanks for the pics. Think I'll go Blaupunkt as well. I found a Blaupunkt online that is correct for a 64 Ghia, that has AM/FM. It may not have been sold in Australia, but is correct for a car of that vintage. I am just going to have to convince the wife that its worth the cost!

If you got one of these and it worked, would the sound be as good as a modern radio? Apart from the mono I mean?

or when is one of you tech geniuses going to strip the guts out of one and put modern internals in?

Amazeer,
You can actually purchase the old look radio from the same place, but with contemporary internals. Not cheap though. If you're interested I'll post you the link.

That is a beautiful Blaupunkt radio - it has four broadcast bands, unlike most of the Australian radios of the time. In case you are wondering what the letters on the buttons stand for, they are:

L - Langewellen (long wave AM) - 148 to 283 kHz - only used in Europe and Africa (not in Australia)
M - Mittelmäßigewellen (medium wave AM) - 520 to 1610 kHz - the standard world-wide AM radio band
K - Kurzewellen (short wave AM) - 2.3 - 26.1 MHz - good for long distance broadcasting
U - Ultrakurzwellen (ultra short wave (VHF)) - 87 - 108 MHz - standard FM band.

Europe was always way in front with FM broadcasting, because of overcrowding of the AM medium wave band. As a result, the Blaupunkt has two FM presets and only one for the other three. Blaupunkt ('blue spot') is owned by Bosch.

The Blaupunkt Frankfurt looks great and really suits the ghia, it also fits into the standard ghia dash without needing a cover plate ( the same as the pic of the sapphire radio in the red dash). IMHO sound quality from these radios is excellent, has a "warmer" sound and makes the driving experience like your back in the 60's, best of luck convincing the wife

Guys,

Thanks for all the information you guys have posted about the radios.

Does anyone know if the speaker mounts on Ghias are the same as on Beetles? I want to get some speakers which are made for Bettles of the same era. Will they fit my Ghia on the standard mounts?

BTW wife has approved expenditure, so I will probably be ordering my radio tonight!

It's been a while for this thread. Thought I'd post a few more Australian '60s ads for car radios: