AUDIO UPGRADE
The failed door speakers were repaired when the doors were dismantled to sort out the electric windows, but if I was to be using the car regularly I wanted to add a more modern sound system. Back in 1990, the Blaupunkt Bremen cassette unit was a top- end unit, but its lack of RDS meant constantly retuning the radio, while I also wanted to add a hands-free phone facility.
I had a suitable unit sitting in the garage and had assumed that it would be a plug-in replacement using the ISO radio plugs which were standard long before our Bentley was made. But of course, it wasn’t that simple – not only were the earth and power connections wired into a Blaupunkt-specific plug, but the car had also been specified with an external amplifier mounted in the boot. This meant that the speaker connections were all wired to the boot-mounted amp rather than the head unit, with a Blaupunkt-specific eight-pin DIN cable connecting the two.
After deciding I couldn’t possibly be beaten, I purchased a suitable cable online and broke out the soldering iron to make up a plug-in adapter. The Blaupunkt BQA107 amp was fitted to several high- end cars of the day including several Porsches, and US-based sellers will happily supply a cable for upwards of £50 plus postage, but after some trial and error I had a working cable for a total outlay of £7. If any Turbo R owners out there want the wiring details, then just contact me at paul.wager@kelsey.co.uk and I’ll happily forward the diagram.