Sixty years ago this month, Boys’ Life magazine, November 1955, carried an ad for this product. It was almost certainly coveted by many of the readers, and I’m certain that Santa was flooded with requests for it that year. It was the Huffy Radiobike: A bicycle with a radio built in to the “tank”! The ad promised that the radio was no toy, being rain-proof, tamper-proof, and shock-proof. “You can drop your bike on the walk if you want to . . . but you probably won’t want to.” The bike itself was well made, of the best materials, strong, speedy, and safe.
The ad also warned readers that “only one in ten thousand will have a Radiobike this Christmas. Many stores will have only a handful all fall. So the smart boy, or his dad, will call a Huffy dealer or write the Huffy Manufacturing Co. for catalog and dealer’s name, today.”
As noted in the ad, the radio itself was mounted in the “tank” of the bike and was a three-tube superhet, apparently manufactured by Yellow Springs Instrument Co. About 8500 units were manufactured. A schematic diagram of the radio is available at this link.
The tubes in the set were reflexed, with a 1R5 serving as converter, a 1U5 serving as IF amp, detector, and the first stage of audio, with a 3V4 serving as the final audio amplifier. The set was powered by a battery pack mounted behind the seat.
More information about the set can be found at nostalgic.net.
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