Rotary Dial Car Phone

[benhutcherson]

Couldn't help but notice this one in an Ebay auction

Take a look several pictures down on the center console of the car. I would guess that this was more than likely a factory installation

http://tinyurl.com/6g39yk ( dead link 05-18-21 )

[Dan/Panther]

Police would go nuts, with that phone in use nowadays.
Love to have a car like that, but can you imagine the upkeep, and cost of parts.
D/P

[bingster]

I wasn't looking for prestige or anything, I just needed a good old car to get around in ... It was weird though how the fancy car influenced people...

Funny you mention this, because I used to do the same thing with cars.  I'm very, very uncomfortable in small cars, so I've always gone for the biggest cars that I could afford.  When I was in my 20s and living at home I used to buy used Buicks and Cadillacs.  I had two Fleetwood Broughams, and it was always strange to me how differently I was treated driving the Cadillacs vs. the Buicks.  People would give way immediately when I was trying to merge, other cars kept their distance on the highway, etc.  Other Cadillac drivers would even wave.  It never seemed to register to them that I had probably only paid a couple thousand for the car, while they had paid tens of thousands for theirs.  But that was back in the 1980s, and I'm not sure the same effect would be seen today.   It was sure fun at the time, though.

The phone in the Rolls is interesting.  I've seen old car phones on eBay from time to time, but I've never seen that one.  Usually you see the horizontal Motorolas with the row of buttons below the handset, and the rotary dial directly beneath the part you grip.

[McHeath]

Wow, that's quite the ride eh?  The phone is sorta like a Princess phone, wonder if it's based on that?  Talk about the ultimate distraction!  "Yeh officer I went off the road and hit the goat when I was trying to make sure I got my finger in the right spot on my rotary car phone while I had the handset cradled against my head." 

I do like old cars.  A few weeks ago I came close to buying a very nice original 66' Bug, but then I came to my senses.  Currently I drive rather boring vehicles, it's been a long while since I had anything interesting or weird like my 77" VW camper van or 51' F-1 pickup.  Guess I inherited the fondness for strange cars as both dad and grandpa liked goofy/interesting cars.  Grandpa bought a Renault Dauphine in the late 50's, pretty weird set of wheels for an old Okie to be buying then, and dad bought equally odd cars and trucks during his life.  Favorite fuel economy champ of mine was the 79' VW diesel Rabbit, 58 mpg on the freeway and the optional 18 gallon tank.  You could drive it forever on one fillup!  Of course it rattled and shook and smelled like an old tractor, but hey...

[mienaichizu]

whoa, like to have a car like that

I wish I could install the same thing in my car

[mienaichizu]

I have a 95' Mitsubishi Pajero, a rotary phone might not look well inside my car

we used to have a VW bettle and a Mitsubishi Galant before way back in the 80's

[McHeath]

My first car was a 1960 Bel Air.  Wish I had that car today.

[HobieSport]

Favorite fuel economy champ of mine was the 79' VW diesel Rabbit, 58 mpg on the freeway and the optional 18 gallon tank.  You could drive it forever on one fillup!  Of course it rattled and shook and smelled like an old tractor, but hey...

We had that same car, but we had some problems with the fuel injectors.  '59 mpg in 1979. The new Rabbit gets 21/30 mpg.  And we wonder what went wrong in the auto industry...

[Dan]

I love how people like the new "Smart" cars thet get 37 mpg. My '84 reliant got 35 with four doors. My friend got 57 mpg in his 3 cyl Geo Metro

Cars are heavier now and have more power luxuries, increasing the weight. They also have 6 cyls when 100 hp four cyls would work. All these factors make 25 mpg on the highway the standard, when with increased technology, we should see 50 mpg highway, 40 city.

Honda civics are the size of accords in the 80's, with thirstier engines, more horsepower, and less mpg

[McHeath]

Yeah Dan you've pretty much got the car industry nailed down.  I was getting 58 mpg on the freeway with that Rabbit in 79', yet now it takes a mega high tech and buck Prius to do the same.  (of course the Prius is way cleaner, but then it should be considering that 30 years have gone by) It was not all that hard to find a car that would give 30+ mpg's back in the early 80s, but now it's a rare deal. 

My boss had a car phone in the early 80's, a hardwired in job that somehow converted the signal to radio and then went to the office where it was tied into the phone lines.  I seem to recall some sort of coupler device, sorta like that gizmo that fellow invented that caused the Bell system to have to open up the lines to outside devices, can't recall the name of it right now.  Also I recall that the whole deal was essentially free once you bought the equipment, other than your normal landline phone bill, which of course we did not call them that then eh?  My dad's company had two way radio in all the trucks, and the range was amazing with that big antenna on the roof, and that was a pretty cheap solution as well.  Wonder if anyone still does that?  In the early 90's I worked in Texas for an alarm company that used cell phones for all the field guys and the bills would be as much as 500 bucks a month each! 

[JimH]

My first car was a '77 Rabbit, German version with Bosch fuel injection (BURNT ORANGE).  I paid $2300 for it in 1982, and another $2300 to keep it on the road for the next three years.  Everything seemed to go wrong with it, electrical , fuel injection, wheel bearings, complete brakes, radiator, etc.  I finally sold it and got a '78 Fiesta that ran like a little top!  I couldn't imagine driving a car that small today, though!

This is not my car, but one that looks just like it:

[Mark Stevens]

Oh boy, this thread has sure jumped its tracks...
Here's my current wheels, an '07 Mini Cooper S. It gets upper 20s in the city and mid 30s on the highway...and runs like a scalded cat!

[HobieSport]

Nice car Mark!  So...what kind of rotary phone do you have installed in it?

[McHeath]

He's got a 554 screwed onto the dash, just like all the rest of us.

That's a nice ride.

[HobieSport]

I thought that Mark had a Dennis Markham WE354 hidden under the hood next to the black panther TV lamp with a secret clock radio disguised as a disney phone.  That's what I get for thinking the internet is a source for actual information...