Ok, maybe not all of us had an underdash-mounted 8-track player, but a lot of us did, or we wanted one. Those of us who couldn’t swing the cost of a Panasonic, Pioneer, RCA, or even a Craig, stopped at K-Mart and bought a Kraco Stereo Eight, a fancy 8-track player, or as fancy as Kraco products got. This blast from the past is listed here on eBay in Chester, New Jersey, and they’re asking $59.99, or you can make an offer. Thanks to stereophonic Howard A. for the tip!
Tone and balance?! That’s fancy for a 1970s underdash, removable, woodgrain-encrusted, heavy, chrome 8-track player from a company that started out making “Snap-On” white walls for tires in the early 1950s. Ask anyone under 40 what white wall tires are, and you may get the dreaded one-eyebrow-raised look. Or worse yet, totally ignored. I’m betting on the latter, especially if you’re over 50. Then again, ask them about 8-track players, and you may be surprised that they’ve heard of them.
Almost everything is retro and popular again if it hangs out for enough decades to be cool again. Compton, California-based Kraco Enterprises was founded by Maurice Kraines (get it, Kra Company/Kraco?) in 1954, and their first products weren’t related to the endless tape cartridge system invented a year earlier (in 1953) by George Eash. That system was a take-off of a slightly earlier invention by Bernard Cousino, but the 8-track that a lot of us knew and loved was related to another gentleman, Mr. Richard Kraus, along with Bill Lear of the Lear Jet Corporation. Yes, the same one that makes bespoke jets.
In 1963, the technology was ready to go, and Ford was the first to use it in Mustangs, Thunderbirds, and Lincolns in the fall of 1965. The key component was the addition of neoprene rubber pinch rollers inside the cartridge, and that’s where Kraco comes back into play. Kraco made those snap-on white walls, and also floormats made of carpet, vinyl, and yes, rubber. The ability to play music in your vehicle, aside from a few carmakers who offered underdash record players, was amazing technology. Sadly, as technology usually goes, it was already sorely outdated by the early 1980s when cassette tapes took over. You can see the theft-proof advantages of this slide-in Kraco player, complete with fancy woodgrain that wraps even onto the underside.
The seller says this player is heavy, and not as in, “Heyyyyyy, heavy, man!” Unfortunately, it hasn’t been tested, so its operating condition is unknown. Some companies specialize in restoring vintage audio equipment, and you can find 8-track cartridges for sale online and sometimes in vintage record stores. Dolly Parton was reportedly the last artist to release an 8-track cartridge in 2020. We had a player in our 1969 Winnebago camper with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and similar era music. I had an in-dash 8-track player in my 1966 Lincoln Continental Coupe, but I didn’t even have an 8-track tape to try in it. Did any of you have one of these players in your vehicle? Bonus points if it was a Kraco!
Wow!!! Huge shout out to Howard for finding this automotive aftermarket artifact. ( that actually sounds pretty good together). And great write up Scotty. The history lesson is fantastic. I knew about Earl “Madman”Muntz and his 4 track stereo version in the early 60’s. I’ve actually seen Bill Lears name associated with the 8 tracks before, but all the other names were new to me.
Its funny, as a kid, Kraco didn’t exactly Ooze high quality. It was a budget company for sure. But if you had limited funds, it was the way to go. I remember the store called 1001 Auto Parts selling Kraco stereos. ( Not sure if they were just in NJ or other states as well ( I’ll have to look that up).
Again, great find Howard and great article Scotty. Good to see you back.
Wow did you jog my memory. I worked at 1001 Auto Parts in Wayne,NJ as a kid. Thanks for the memories of looking up car parts in a multitude of books.
I grew up in NJ and my dad put a Kraco radio in his 1987 Nissan pickup that he bought new with no radio from the factory.
I remember them well. I also remember the tape had graphite on the back side to help it slide off of the roll inside the cartridge and this graphite would built up on the rubber drive roller to the point it’s traction to pull the tape would suffer and the sound came out with a “vibrato” effect – the solution was to fold up a match book (remember those ?) and wedge it under the edge of the cartridge in the deck so the tape roller was forced harder/tighter into the drive shaft. Was a wonderful thing when cassette tapes came along!
been there done that. I remember in my high school years hitting second gear so hard in a street race that the music stopped…….I found the tape in the back seat.
I believe Kraco was carried by Kmart around these parts.
My first newish car was a year old 1979 CJ7. AM/FM/8 track from factory. Didn’t take me long to add a underdash cassette player with a quick detach mount. Couldn’t leave it in at work in the city with a soft top. Couple 6×9 speakers mounted in wood behind the rear seat sounded pretty good.
8 tracks were fun as you could jump fast between the tracks. But Cassettes were better quality and held 2 albums. We sure were exposed to great music listening to entire albums.
Think anyone young today buys and listens to every track on a album?
Yes, now I remember K Mart had them too.
“I’m a highwayyy (kachunk) starrrr”
Nova Tom, I’d give you ten thumbs up for that one if I could. My parents had an 8 track in our car, I remember them listening to Barry Manilow. “I Write the songs that make……………Kachunk…….. the Whole World Sing…..” lol.
as long as the kachunk wasn’t followed by a loud hiss than silence after the thing ate your tape. If you’ve ever seen how they work you wonder how they played at all. 8 track players were also available for the home. Radio Shack sold them.
“You want a whole lotta,,,ka-chunk,,love. :)
Or try Thick as A Brick, which is one song long!
Yes, AJ, I’ve still got “Thick as a Brick.”
Oh boy, was that ever so true, Nova Tom.
Tom, to this day I hear classic rock songs that I had on 8-track and I expect them to fade down…5 seconds…(KERCHUNK) then fade back up. That was in our ‘72 Vega.
Side note, knee Maurice Kraines in the 80’s covering the Indy car circuit. Kraco was the main sponsor for Michael Andretti for many years. Mo was a highly visible owner and was present at nearly every race.
Anybody else get the feeling this is going to have, like, 58 comments by 11 pm tonight?
Heck yeah ! irresistible :)
It won’t surprise me at all. Most of us that populate this page grew up with 8-track players and they kept us entertained for many years.
I remember the hours I spent fixing tapes that broke right on the metallic seam/track-changer. Friends used to bring me their tapes and I would unwind them and wind them back up again. I would repair the seam with ordinary Scotch double-sided tape and stick the metallic piece in place. Get it set up properly and it would play through a lot more miles and cans of beer.
It’s interesting that you get conditioned to listening to an 8-track and the “click” when the channel changes. You hear the same song on a radio or thumb drive and find yourself expecting the ‘click’ when the song is over.
Led Zeppelin IV, “Stairway to Heaven.” “And she’s buying–the stairway–to–Heaven…” “Click-click.”
Put an in dash AM-FM stereo w/8-track in my ’73 Olds convertible because the factory’s was way too pricey. Still remember the tapes & how the tunes would fade out and then fade back in as each track “ka-chunked.” Over the years as I’ve listened to songs I’d had on 8-Track, I still anticipate that fade.
AMAZING that Dolly put out something on 8-Track in 2020!
I remember Kraco mainly for sponsoring an Indy car.
Certain vintage Pioneer Super Tuners typically sell in the $300+ range. If you look up used/completed/sold on eBay they are easy to find. I wouldn’t have suspected until I was at a friends house and one of the signs in his garage was a lighted Pioneer sign and he started explaining which ones were valuable and which weren’t.
Steve R
Vintage Alpine units also sell for good money; makes sense, now that 80’s cars are cool again, and if you want to be super-cool you need an Alpine head unit.
Same here. I think Michael Andretti’s car was sponsored by Kraco before he got with Haas and K-Mart. In high school I had 2 cars. A 1956 Austin Healey 100 4 and a 1962 VW Bug (for when the Healey wouldn’t start). I wanted to listen to music in the Bug, so I installed an 8 track tape player under the ash tray and mounted a 12V battery in the trunk of the Bug, direct wired it to the player and I had music.
Michael Andretti’s Kraco car was auctioned by Bonham’s in 2011 for $58,500. There may be later sales than that, but I didn’t search any further.
Kraco’s first product was snap on whitewalls.
I had to look that up elsewhere to believe it was actually true !
We called them krackos here in KY , because they would crackle when cranking Uncle Ted etc……
The 8-track had pretty well run it’s course by the time I had my first car in 1987 (’72 Comet GT). Grew up with them and played them a lot growing up in the Magnavox console.
Kraco was still quite common. A popular cheapo brand that came about in the ’80s I believe was “Sparkomatic”. Sold at Nationwise Auto Parts in OH (part of Western Auto). Of course I had one with the 6×9’s sitting on the rear shelf that I never got around to mounting. Still better than the Philco AM with the single dash speaker !
We called them “spankomatic” don’t really know why but I remember buying sparkomatic speakers at Kmart, white speaker with blue foam and tweeter bracket.
Sparkomatic was a brand name.They were founded in 1953. They merged with Altec Lansing in 2000. They also made shift linkage. My ’55 Chevy in high school was converted to a floor shift with a sparkomatic kit. It was a little sloppy when I had it. How it work when it was new I don’t know.
Groovy man!!
“Had one?” These are every day items for me. I have a house full of hundreds of 8-track tapes and dozens of players, not including the 8-track players and tapes I have in a few older vehicles.
Had one in my 69 Fairlane back in 76. They were about 20 bucks at K-Mart. Still have about a dozen or so 8 tracks!
Hi Daniel, initially, off brand 8 tracks sold for about $60 bucks. High end ones, like Pioneer, were almost $150. By the late 70s, Radio Shack cut their 8 track players to $29.95, but cassettes were coming in and made the 8 track obsolete. Even kid Dyn-o-mite( Jimmie Walker) pitched 8 tracks.
Well, who could forget its predecessor, the 4-track player? Same basic design. The ’63 Thunderbird first offered those.
I had a four track player and it was great. Heads on an 8 track step up and down, the four track player heads were fixed and never out of adjustment. Kinda like the Betamax VHS deal, the 4 track didn’t survive.
Back in those days, we used 4 tracks in Radio to record commercials on for playback when needed. Giant electro magnets to erase content to re-use
AJ. I think Wolfman popped an 8 track into the studio console while Curt was visiting that evening.
Hi AJ. I remember those ‘Cartridges’ and the big magnets they used. Quite impressive to see an ad erased and another one recorded overtop…
Another good thing about 8Tracks. There was room for a pic of the album on it 📸
Had an 8 track player mounted under the dash in my first car, but didn’t want to cut the rear deck, so bought the cheesy surface mounted speakers. Then it was down to the farmers market to buy the used tapes, gambling on the condition. I still remember listening to Robin Trowers “Long Misty Days” playing over and over, while I was busy “talking” to my girlfriend on the bench seat.
I put a Lear Jet 8-track and kick panel speakers in my ‘74 Datsun P/U in ‘78, what a great time to be a teenager. Thanks, Scotty and Howard.
I had one mounted on the front of the console in my 67 Camaro Super Sport. With the bigger Bass 48’s in the back window. Neil Young, Ten Years After, CSN&Y, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, etc.
I couldn’t afford a high end player but I didn’t want go cheap (Radio Shack or Kraco) so I bought a Sanyo 8-Track player. I wasn’t sure how to install it on my 77′ Chevette so I took the glove box lid off and laid the player inside.
For a time I was an Indentured Servant to the Columbia Record and Tape club.
Ahhh yes, Columbia House got you hooked with something like 13 records or tapes for a dollar then came the obligation to buy monthly.
First and foremost, I’d like to thank Scotty, as a longtime friend, I know what his interests are, and coincidentally, resonate to a great many people here. As I sit in “solitary confinement”, it gives me plenty of time to reflect. I try and think of things that made a profound difference in our vehicle lives, and the 8 track was clearly one of them.
For younger readers, that merely push a screen app., in the late 60s, early 70s, FM radio, where all the cool music was, was in its infancy. FM stations had a range of about 2 miles, so any cruising lacked tunes. The 8 track tape player changed all that. You could take Led Zepplin well into the night. I, like many, had a 6 volt car, a ’58 Volvo, but many had 6 volt VWs, so I had to carry a 12 volt in the back seat. By the end of the night, it barely changed the tracks. It was important to hitch up the “Schumacher”( charger) before bed.
Make no mistake, tapes then weren’t cheap then. Since tapes were new, there were no “boxes” of tapes at a thrift sale, when you were making $1.77/hr. and 20 hours a week, maybe 1 tape a week, unless that back tire blew.
I saw Kraco, but there were so many then, and yes, when I hear those “old” songs, I get to the point where the “ka-chunk” was. Since they were a continuous loop, many times the “ka-chunk” woke you up, hopefully at home.
Thanks to all who responded and to Scotty and the site, as fablunged as society gets, they can’t take these memories away from us. After March 29, 1973, the end of US involvement in Vietnam, that I just missed, it was a great time, and we were lucky to experience that. Amen.
Oh, since we’re talkin’ vintage music, there was one exception to the weak FM stations then, it was an AM station , KAAY, 1090 from Little Rock, AR. After midnight, a program called “Beaker Street” with Clyde Clifford and could only be picked up away from a city, and the 1st time I heard Led Zepplin, Whole lotta love, circa 1971.
I still have a car 8-track player and a home stereo 8-track with about 20 old tapes. Haven’t listened to them in years, makes for great conversation pieces. I’m still recovering from the brain damage of 8-tracks dragging slow or just stopping all together. A person had to have that special folded up piece of paper to stick in the side and try to get it to play again. And then when I pulled the cartridge out of the player and here is 20-30 feet of tape stuck in the player that I might never get it all out. I was so thankful when cassettes hit the market. Great memories…
Yes, I can’t remember having a car 8 track, but I do now have a Sound Design table model AM / FM, 8 track, with phono connection option, hooked up to speakers on a shelf in the garage. This “eats” tapes however. I tried selling the 8 track tapes at flea markets for $1 each but few wanted them. I can’t remember how I obtained this unit, just like I can’t remember even seeing some things up in the attic when I go there. I guess that way every day is new.
One of the many strange things about getting older (63) is seeing items of my youth now becoming antiques. Seeing this 8-track player transports me to an another time, not necessarily a better one, but definitely different.
Yeah, like checking antique stores for road maps!
Most road maps are still far more accurate than the idiotic maps apps. Case in point, if anyone is traveling west on I-80 in the winter when they (frequently) close the interstate, do NOT get sucked into believing that Dog Valley Road and Henness Pass Road are passable-even with a 4WD with chains they’re unusable during the winter! Search And Rescue is CONSTANTLY going out to save flatlanders that drive (or try to drive) around the gates.
Cartography like calligraphy is a dying art it seems..
Great discovery, Howard and another excellent feature Scotty.
With that, didn’t see anyone mentioning that when the tape broke then the FM didn’t reach that the analog Sirius/XM of the time-Wolfman Jack-was the best fallback!
I just picked up one of the first Sony under dash cassette players offered in the US (circa 1969). Hope to back in operating condition for my ’70. Was $199, I believe at the time. Lot of $$ back then.
My first aftermarket stereo was a 1980s Craig “Road Rated” AM/FM stereo cassette player with auto-reverse, auto-seek. Fit the dash without any cutting. Cricket 6×9 coax speakers in back. I was in heaven.
I also had one of the early Sony underdash cassette players. Model TC-20. Six watts RMS per channel into a couple of 2 way bookshelf speakers cabinets in the back of my Beetle, surprisingly good sound. Also owned an 8-track record/playback home deck, used for recording tapes for others.
Yep, it’s a TC-20. Probably just needs cleaning and some fresh belts. I have two other Sony home cassette decks from the ’70s as well.
Ahh the memories! I still have the Craig that hung under the dash in my 69 Chevelle, and the 8 tracks. Now I wish I still had the Chevelle. Great find that carries with it a trip down memory lane.
When it was cold out like below zero in Iowa they would really drag. Real bummer when I needed tunes in my 1965 Rambler American after the player warmed up then you could listen to the Doors and LA Women.
I wore out three of the “The Cars” “Candy-O” 8 track tapes. I still have that title on album, 8-track, cassette and compact disc.
Like many here, this write-up brings back many memories of youth. My first automotive music upgrade was an under dash 8-track player I installed in my 1968 Ranchero around 1975. It had a feature that I never saw on any other player. Remember how 8-tracks had a tendency to double-track, playing parts of 2 tracks at the same time? My player had a roller wheel on the face of the player that would adjust the head to eliminate the double tracking without having to resort to propping the tape up with a matchbook. Pretty trick!
I think my first car stereo was a pioneer with a Kraco power booster and Craig powerplay speakers. Kraco was very popular back then but, always just cheap junk. We have come a very long way from the late 1970 sound quality.
I had one in my ’68 GTO. I finally tossed all those 8 track tapes about 4 years ago because I could not find a player that worked. That was sad because I had all the great music from the 60s and 70s on tape. At home I had a player that recorded 8 tracks and I had made a lot of mixed music on it.
Don’t forget the fm converters too🤣
Still have one, somewhere!
And the 8-track to cassette converters.
My dad and uncle sold Muntz 4 and 8 track tape players/ tapes in our Texaco. This was in 1967 when I was 12. We had an 8 track and I listened to the Box Tops’ The Letter.
ENOUGH>>>PLEASE….LOL….MY HEAD HURTS…This gets more write up than the cars……
Lol
I never had an 8 track in my car – always a cassette player. My first was a Craig underdash, and left the AM radio in the dash.
I did have a portable 8 track player and a carry case of classic rock tapes. When I quit a job, I left it there and really didn’t care. Years later, I asked my brother (who was working there at the time) if my player and tapes were still there, and he said that they were, and still being used. That would be mid to late 80’s. Like they say, great Rock ‘N Roll will never die.
Now, I follow the Reddit group dedicated to 8 tracks and there are many many people who still enjoy this format. A goo source if you have a player that needs repairs.
I had a 8-track in my 72 ‘ Gremlin X,I bought it in the auto dept. of the 2 Guys in New Jersey.
OOOhh, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, but I can remember everything whether it happened or not.
In that kinda distant past, maybe in winter of 1972, I left New England with my GF in a 1963 VW bus. We ended up in Tucson where we supposed to meet up with a friend who was going to school there. The GF had a small inheritance and we took our bus to a local stereo shop and had this, or a similar Kraco installed on a slide-out bracket. I can’t remember how we did the 6v/12v solution. We slid the Kraco off the bottom of the dash shelf and just put it behind the driver seat. Good times for a couple of then-hippies.
Similar cartridge/tape handling was a commercial success for years with tape carts at radio stations, perhaps adapted from them.
My first car, I had a portable 8 track player. It was designed to open up, and the speakers separated to about 4 feet apart. That setup went into my next “car” also- a 63 Chevy panel truck.
The 67 or 68 Chevy wagon I got after that, I bought a used Lear under dash and mounted it. I forget what sort of speakers I had in that car.
But come the latter part of 76, and I bought my first new car- a 77 Camaro with factory AM/FM 8 track! It had one speaker in the dash, and one in the package shelf. Luckily, the metal in the package shelf was already made to mount two speakers. I put some Jensen Duo-cones in it, and as I remember it sounded really good for the time. The factory GM head unit wasn’t half bad.
My Dad bought one of those portable/installable units. He used it in his ’68 Chevy pickup, just parked it on the hump in the middle. It just plugged into the lighter receptacle. A bunch of us reprobates got horsing around and managed to pop the cable out of the plug end. I sort of repaired it but when Dad plugged in his favorite Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass tape, it ran it backwards.
Dad was upset! First time I heard him talk like a sailor when we weren’t herding cattle on a hot day.
Well, I studied things a little better and fixed the cord properly; it played Dad’s other tapes just fine. I took his Herb Alpert tape and carefully cut it open. Managed to iron out the wrinkles and got it working again.
Dad was sort of happy but not really. He used that player in his ’69 IH Travelette then I properly installed it in his ’71 Ford F-250, where he used it until he got vehicles (his cars) with the players already installed, or in the case of his ’77 Chevy, I got everything he needed through work to install a factory AM/FM/8-Track right into the dash.
Just about three years ago, I did a similar thing with my 66 F-100, then relatively new to me, but it was with a slightly later retractable Sanyo FM cassette that I had in the garage for many years. I had wanted to install a stock AM radio, but a previous owner had hacked a big rectangle in the dash and no radio. I did find an original dash mount speaker and grille on eBay. I mounted the Sanyo on the truck hump and wired it up. Works well enough for whenever I want radio but no AM. There is a steel plate, available on eBay that can be welded to dash that can return to stock for original radio. Maybe some day.
Funny as hell.
Bought my first 8 track player at Western Auto in 1968. Added a speaker in each front door and two in the rear parcel shelf of my 64 Galaxie. The 8 track player had a blue light on the front of the unit that put out a very nice blue glow. Took out the interior lights on the C pillars and spray painted them blue. Perfect for “parking” with my date. Still remember one girl that loved Three Dog Night, Eli’s Coming. Oh yeah!
Damn it you stirred up a memory
I thought your name is Azzura, not Eli! LMAO!
LOL
Yes, I remember them well. Like anything else 8-tracks were great when they worked right, but highly frustrating when they didn’t, which was often. A common sight here in the South was an 8-track cartridge lying broken on the road with about ten or fifteen feet of tape strung out on the asphalt where an exasperated driver had simply yanked it out of the player and tossed it out the window.
I had an 8 track in my ’70 Opel GT. I was listening to Kraftwerk Autobahn on headphones and missed my house by thirty miles. The head always seemed to be a bit misaligned where you heard two songs at the same time.
As Arte Johnson of Laugh-In fame used to sort of say, “veddy intellesting but not stupid” in this case.
In ’74 I was the proud owner of a ’72 Caprice so I upgraded the Delco FM stereo to AM-FM stereo 8- track.
Then I had an 8-track recorder to record my albums. I learned to fade out the song at the end of the channel and fade back in on the next channel. I used to add up times of the songs to figure out how many songs to fit on a channel!
And I had to “coach” my parents to tread a little lighter through the living room when I was recording.
I then bought a cassette recorder so I could dub ( remember that term?) my 8- tracks onto cassette with added hiss even though I used Scotch hi grade tapes.
I still have 56 8-tracks and a commercial 8-track player.
I also have a Sony cassette changer that holds 5 cassettes on a carousel like a cd changer that also records. Similar to a cd changer.
I saw something on Facebook yesterday I’ve never seen before; a Realistic 8-track changer. It held 3 tapes and I guess would play them in order. Tapes were stacked vertically. Any of you seen one of these?
Let’s not forget the repair kit…a matchbook or er rolling papers under the sagging tape. another option at night was Beaker Street/ KAAY throughout the Midwest on AM with an enormous signal out of Little Rock from the Gulf to Canada.
For all attention this eBay listing has brought I’m surprised someone in this conversation hasn’t snatched it up yet.
True, but it does not work.
I paid $60 at the flea market for a Kraco 8-track with a tuner for my 71 Camaro. A local electronics shop shoehorned it into the empty space above the Camaro console. If somebody wanted to steal it, they’d really have to work for it. that puppy wasn’t going anywhere.
Great memories. Still have a Kraco 8-track player in my ’73 Dodge van and also have a new in the box Bearcat 4 channel scanner that plugs into and works from an 8-track player.
Far Out Man!
Does anybody remember the aftermarket REVERB units? They had an internal SPRING that was part of the mechanism that provided the effect . (distortion?) Most of them were mounted under the dash with the flimsy brackets provided, which enhanced the effect when going over bumps… and especially when going over railroad crossings.MY friend had one of these horrors iin his ’68 Olds Cutlass “supreme”. It made his crappy factory radio sound even worse. …..But at least the music was good!
“IF YOU CAN REMEMBER THE 60’s…. YOU WEREN’T THERE!”
Reverb was a poor kids version of stereo.
In my 74 Grand Prix, I installed an aftermarket AM/FM 8 track in-dash along with the by then obligatory Jensen Tri-Axials in the package shelf. I then put a power booster in the glove box. Switching it on probably did nothing for the audio quality, but it did allow LOUD. And really, my setup wasn’t of bad quality for the time, especially compared to many factory systems of the time. For instance, my 77 Camaro with one speaker in the dash and one in the package shelf. Putting two good speakers in the package shelf as left and right stereo channels improved it drastically.
I remember Kraco. They were sold at “Two Guys” department store in Bordentown, NJ.
We had a Two Guys on Roosevelt Boulevard (US rt 1) here in NE Philadelphia. It closed quite a few years ago but I still come across some Two Guys stickers on paint cans in the garage. Some of these cans are almost full of spray paint. Has anyone here tried the trick of repressuring spray cans after drilling and putting in a Schraeder valve to apply air? I have a hoard of cans with paint that have lost pressure.