car radio query

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

I got asked to do a sound byte or two for an upcoming History Channel 
piece, and I wanted to ask the engineers on this list a question.  We have 
all run into the issue of disc jockeys claiming to be first in history to 
do something, claiming a song was written about them, claiming they did 
something unique-- and later it turns out to be untrue.  Ditto for stations 
which (like KDKA) say they were the first station in the world to 
broadcast-- which is totally false-- but which many books still state as a 
fact.  Sooo, in the interest of accuracy, the question was put to me about 
the importance of Motorola in the car radio field.  My sense was that in 
the early 30s, when car radios began gaining more prominence (and when some 
major engineering problems had been handled), Motorola was one of a number 
of companies trying to break through and get some publicity, but that the 
public did NOT know it as the best or the first or whatever.  Motorola's 
publicity, of course, tells a different story, but I have pored over many 
reels of microfilm and while I find stories about the much better funded 
General Motors Radio Company (in which RCA and Westinghouse owned shares), 
and about inventor Leo Fenway's company and Delco and several other names, 
I find little about Paul Galvin and Motorola till much later.  Yet in 
William Lear's various writings (he worked with Galvin in the early 30s), 
and in Motorola's history, the impression that Motorola made a major and 
immediate impact is given.  So, if none of the major newspapers or 
magazines wrote word one about the company in the early to mid 30s, and if 
the company was in fact a little guy amongst giant corporations, how did 
Motorola become synonymous with car radios?????  Anybody got a theory?