Physical media is making a HUGE comeback in automobiles after it was announced earlier this week that the new Lexus IS Wax Edition would have a built-in record player, perfect for vinyl purists who want to ruin their collection.
"Cars get notoriously hot when left in the sun," Lexus spokesperson Bruce Nugget said. "And I can't think of a better place to store your records for that long, impromptu journey than your car."
"And people worried about the stability of the record player's stylus shouldn't be concerned at all. I mean, of course there may be some audio interference if the car is rolling down a cliff or if it's making a turn at speeds faster than 2mph, but the average sensible-driving Joe, who can afford to get into years of crippling debt from buying a fancy Lexus, will have nothing to fear."
"We at Lexus also believe that road safety is of the utmost importance," Bruce Nugget continued. "So having to stop every eighteen minutes or so to change playing sides will be a welcome, restful break for motorists. It will not only decrease the chances of drivers getting tired and accidentally ploughing into a bus of screaming pensioners but it will also help increase roadside safety awareness. For some people, it could be quite daunting pulling over in the middle of the night on a desolate highway, or in New Jersey, to flip the record over. We've already had concerns from women's safety organisations and car-jacking victim groups, and I'm proud to say that after listening to their worriments, the IS Wax Edition will now also come with a flare gun, a Bowie knife and two M14 TH3 incendiary hand grenades. All part of the Executive package, of course."
But where will the record player actually reside?
"Well," the Lexus spokesperson said, "it was quite the conundrum to begin with, I must admit. We initially planned on soldering it to the roof of the car but the prototypes were a disaster. For one thing, we found that weather had a detrimental affect on the fidelity of the record being played. Also, birds."
"So eventually it was decided to put the record player in the glove box. No-one uses those anyway."
"We know what people want," said David Jesus, general manager of Lexus, U.S. division. "And what people want is to listen to the warm complexity of vinyl whilst driving in an extremely unstable and noisy environment."
Welcome to the 21st century.
When news of the new Lexus model and its forward thinking design in audio technology broke out, competitors were quick to follow suit.
A KIA spokesperson, just mere hours after the Lexus reveal, announced that they too were working on "vinyl technology in the automobile genre."
Tom Kuntiskates, Dodge Motors CEO, said that they had already installed the "45 Jukebox" in their latest models of the Challenger which are currently on the production line. Capable of storing and playing a whopping 25 7" records in a unit housed in the trunk and controlled via bluetooth technology on the dashboard, the 45 Jukebox has been tentatively nicknamed the "Tarantino" after the famous American brand of cooking sauce.
On Tuesday, at a press conference, Ford CEO Jim Rusks announced that they too were bringing back physical audio playback in their cars. "Records!" he screamed. "Records! Records! Records! And CDs! IN OUR FUCKIN' CARS!" He then fired a belt-fed machine gun over the heads of the crowd and ate a cigar.
And just yesterday, Martin Bork, CEO of Swedish motor company Volvo, declared that to keep up with the latest trends in automobile audiophilia, all of their new Hybrid models will now be fitted with 8-Track cassette players, along with a meatball dispensing flex-tube and high-quality chocolate dashboard. These cars will, of course, be flat-packed as standard.
- Mark Anthony Finch