1950's Crosley Radio Design Facts Finally Revealed

Most people believe that Crosley Radio Corp designed and manufactured all there classic 1950's dashboard radios entirely themselves. Actually they assembled them and the real design credit needs to go to the source i.e. The Carl Reynolds Co. of Detroit Michigan. Crosley hired the Carl Reynolds Co. to do all the enclosure designs and then had Chicago Mold Co. make the injection molds and produce the bakelite Carl Reynolds Co. wonderful artwork cabinet designs!

Crosley, assembled the radios with an enclosure, designed and created by someone else. All these years, Crosley has been taking credit, for the unique collector radios and clocks! Crosley electronic engineers did design the electronic tube chassis. This also is excellent and copied by many other company's. But the style is what really sells these radios.

Below is a copy of the Plastics Progress magazine article that on pg.2 exposes this fact, plus the son of Carl Reynolds (Neil Reynolds) has contacted nucow.com, and furnished this article in order to finally help expose the truth! As a boy Neil Reynolds spend many hours in his dad's engineering lab observing these unique designs being created! Crosley, outsourcing there enclosure designs, then taking all credit and most of the profit is exposed by, industry only magazine, article below. Must give Crosley management credit for finding such a great design company though!

The VIP story of page 2 indicates the following:

New to the clock-radio field is a unit that looks more like a clock then a radio...sounds more like a large radio than a small one...look's as good in an office as it does in a bedroom. It's the Crosley VIP, a new departure in design and engineering, but an old standby-plastics-is the chosen material for the housing of this important new product.

Unlike the many stories involving new products, the VIP story can be told in three short chapters. That's because a world of technical skill and years of engineering experience are written into this story...from the first chapter on design to the final chapter, plastics. The preface begins something like this:

In an effort to meet the strong competition developing in the clock-radio field, the Crosley organization decided on a fresh approach. No mere face lifting job was enough-complete redesign and re-engineered chassis for the Crosley clock-radio was the goal. And it had to be different ...a product that would appeal to more people, thereby increasing the Crosley market potential.

With this in mind Crosley envisioned a clock-radio with the emphasis on CLOCK. They took this germ of an idea to the Carl Reynolds Co. of Detroit, industrial designers. The result is the classic face of the VIP. Suggestion of radio design were kept to a minimum. Even radio control knobs are located at the side of the unit.

Though the VIP design tends toward simplicity and stately good looks, the clock bezel is trimmed in brilliant mar-resistant brass. Cabinet colors of rich blue, maroon, green, etc.