Oct 04, 1997
RAY: Some time ago I used the puzzler regarding the man who was responsible for introducing to America the car radio. Bill Lear was his name. From Lear Jet fame. And the radio was called the Moto-Rola. Motor. Ola.
TOM: Oh. Great name.
RAY: It turns out, Bill Lear also invented another car related device that was popular in the seventies. In fact, the car I owned had one and it was something you would find in the dashboard back then, but you'd hardly ever find one on a car now.
The question is simple: What was it?
TOM: It was an eight-track player.
RAY: There you go! For those youngsters in the audience, an eight-track player was one continuous loop of tape. It would keep playing over and over and over again. And there were eight tracks that you could skip around. It was brilliant.
TOM: I don't understand what happened to the eight-track. That was a great technology.
RAY: They jammed up all the time. I threw away all my tapes.
TOM: You never knew what was on any of those tracks. You never knew what was actually happening when you pressed the button. If you tried to find something you had just listened to, it would take you a week.
RAY: Do we have a winner?
TOM: The winner this week is Ed Mazurek from Mebane, North Carolina. Congratulations, Ed.
