L.E.D. digital clocks were considered incredibly futuristic in 1978.
When I bought my first car for 50 bucks at age 14, there was one source for all my parts needs: J.C. Whitney of Chicago! The amazing J.C. Whitney catalogs had ordinary items such as wheel cylinders and tune-up parts, sure, but the best part was the crazy selection of cool stuff like hood scoops and air-cooled VW hop-up goodies. A 24 Hours of Lemons racer just gave me 50 pounds of 1970s J.C. Whitney catalogs, and my love of car clocks sent me right to the C part of the index. Here’s what I found in a 1978 catalog.
A lot of these clocks used batteries, not the car’s power.
For those who didn’t want to cut into their car’s wiring harness, J.C. Whitney offered clocks with wind-up or battery mechanisms. The one on the right, above, looks like it may have been a VDO or Stewart-Warner unit, considering the stiff price ($28.98 in 1978 is about $119 in 2019 dollars).
If this van’s a-rockin’, don’t bother checkin’ the time!
Naturally, owners of custom vans wanted science-fictiony digital clocks, nestled among the spirochete-suffused shag carpeting, and J.C. Whitney offered this one in the custom-van section of the 1978 catalog. You could get stick-on murals by Greg of Akron, too!
I had no idea this automotive clock radio existed until today.
Amazingly, 1978 J.C. Whitney shoppers could get this in-dash, OEM-looking radio with built-in mechanical-digital clock. Keep in mind that $79.95 in 1978 was about $328 in 2019 bucks when you study this fine piece of Malaise Era technology. In my 37 years of crawling around in junkyards, I have never seen one of these clocks in person… but now I’m going to look a lot harder.
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