Continental Edison 'Radioen Hi Fi' Front Speaker Grille

An early Christmas present! after many years of searching, I've managed to find a grille for my front radio speaker.

As available for Ds until 1969, the Continental Edison 'Radioen Hi-Fi' radio has 'FM'....... 

Continental Edison 'Radioen Hi Fi' (image copyright: Pfandango)

..... and when fitted to a DS, included a front speaker beneath the dashboard.

Front speaker - just below the radio

The plastic grille was colour-matched to either the 'naturel' leather interior of a Pallas-option car,

or was available in black to go with the black leather option or standard black vinyl of the under-dash piece.

Despite being called 'hi-fi' and despite cars having two speakers, the radios are not stereo. They are dual mono with a trim knob to alter the balance of sound between the front and rear of the car. Regardless, they are things of beauty when paired with a mid 1960s dashboard.

Continental Edison 'Radioen Hi Fi' radios change hands for very high prices these days. In fact sometimes more than I paid for my car back in 1995!

£21 postage? That's steep............

Beginning to look like a bargain...

Some people retro-fit the radios to their cars, but not the front speaker - possibly because you don't see the front speaker parts for sale.

'Radioen Hi-Fi' but no front speaker

When I bought my car (back in 1995) there was no radio (or glovebox) in the dash and just a plain leather under-dash piece. I suspected that a Continental Edison radio had been fitted but - because of it's value and scarcity - it had been removed at some point when the car changed hands. 

My car back in 1995

Every time I drove the car, the gaping hole in the dashboard was crying out to be filled and the obvious (and most desirable) solution was to find an original Continental Edison 'Hi-Fi' radio. This was all pre-Internet and I asked far and wide and I eventually managed to find one courtesy of Olivier Houiller at 'French Classics'. When my car was laid up in about 2000, I was wise enough to remove the radio and store it away. 

Back in 2015 - very soon after I'd started the restoration of my car -  I'd gone over to Holland to the 'Citromobile' event. I  took a list of 'wants' and that first year, one of the things I'd specifically gone hoping to find was that under-dash piece with speaker, knob and grille. it was the first thing i searched for - looking under tables and behind boxes.

I asked a couple of specialist stallholders selling Citroen dashboards and radios but they all sucked air through their teeth and told me they didn't have one. I was therefore gobsmacked when - late in the afternoon of the last day of the auto jumble - someone sauntered by me carrying just the part I'd been after! He told me he'd just bought it from a stall! I was too proud to beg him to sell it to me - but he was gracious enough to let me take a photo of it.

Tintin and The One That Got Away......3.21pm Sunday 3 May 2015

That sense of having missed out lingered with me. Over the years I periodically made enquiries with part sellers and in February 2020 got lucky: Huub In T Zandt had the under dash piece. 

But it was missing its grille. Huub did, however, offer to include a 3D printed grille with the part.

3D printed grille

The 3D version looked like the genuine part, but was a darker colour. It also had a typical, rough printed finish to it and the grid of the grille part was very delicate - with very thin bars on the mesh.

I could easily imagine a passengers knee going straight through it on day one. But the poor quality of the 3D printed parts didn't stop people asking high prices for copies.....

High price.....

.......but poor finish

If buying one was the alternative, then that free 3D grille was a generous extra from Huub and would do, but I also decided I would still keep an eye out for an original and i searched on. My searching even led me to a programme for a 3D print! Though from looking at it, I suspected that was the source of the 3D copies already circulating. 

3D print programme

Using the photo I'd taken at 'Citromobile', I tried on Facebook again last summer..... 

Desperate use of foreign languages....

but was disappointed that it got me nowhere. Last week Facebook reminded me of the 'happy memory' and, on a whim, I decided to try again.......and this time I got a positive reply - from Sweden!

I got lucky!

Not only did Marten have an original grille for sale, but it was brand spanking new, and still in its bag.

Still sealed in it's bag (credit: Marten Ekelin)

I checked the part number  - DS 653 55a - in the Citroen parts catalogue and it tallied.

Extract from parts catalogue 562

Marten's asking price was very fair - less than I expected and less than the cost of a poorer quality 3D print. 

I was a bit nervous of having it posted so close to Christmas, but it's was a tracked and signed-for service. The part arrived from Sweden yesterday and it's everything I could have hoped for.

As I suspected, it's far more substantial than the 3D printed copies with thicker and deeper bars on the mesh and the sort of finish you would expect on an injection moulded part.

Original Citroen part

Being plastic it's still delicate and very hard to replace. perhaps I should investigate getting good quality copies made before I use it?