Philco-Ford televisions,...how well engineered were they?

[nasadowsk]

Originally Posted by Tim Tress

All of the early transistor radios, including car radios, used germanium transistors. They did work, but were noisy and sensitive to heat.

In the 1960s, better transistors were being developed, and the prices of the silicon transistors had started to come down; by 1963, all of the OEM car radios were solid state.

This is probably the real reason why early transistor car radios got discontinued so fast. Not some grand tube conspiracy (to be honest, allpar tends to bend a lot of car history...). Early transistors pretty much sucked, because nobody really knew how to make a good one, because nobody had really ever made them before. Space charge tubes were pretty short lived anyway...