Are you planning to purchase a new car? Are you also planning to grab all your tape cassettes and listen to them in your new wheels? If so, there's bad news for you. Cassette tapes are now history.
Remember when nearly every car in America had a cassette player? It wasn't all that long ago, but now it is history. The New York Times reports (at http://goo.gl/FpjRK) the 2010 Lexus SC 430 was the last model to offer a cassette deck as an option.
Actually, CD players are also on the way out as they are being replaced with hard drives containing MP3 files as well as by MP3 players that connect via an external input jack. It is now cheaper and more practical to plug your iPod into the automobile's stereo system than to carry tapes or CDs.
I guess the only way for me to listen to my Mamas and Pappas cassette tape collection is to keep my 1996 auto that has a cassette player.
