While the technology we now have in vehicles now could be helpful, a whole lot of it’s distracting. Along with ever increasing screen sizes, cellular phone use while driving continues to be an issue. Cellphone usage while driving spiked in the course of the pandemic and has only gotten worse unfortunately. While bluetooth technology for hands free usage hasn’t at all times been around, some automakers were eager about hands free cellular phone use a long time before it became mainstream.
In-vehicle cell phones were big within the early Nineties, especially on vehicles that were bought by business types. Most manufacturers that offered them placed them in or across the armrest. Chrysler was considering otherwise. The automaker partnered with Japanese telecommunications company OKI Telecom of Atlanta to develop an in-car cellular phone that was concealed in the motive force’s visor.
Flip the visor down and also you were met with a phone that looked like a calculator, each in size and appearance. It had a dial pad, small, radio-like LCD screen and had buttons for other controls, like muting and dimming of the screen and a sliding volume control. Chrysler said the phone was able to storing 100-phone numbers.
Initially the Visorphone was only available on the Recent Yorker, Fifth Avenue, Imperial and Dodge Dynasty models. It debuted in 1990 and was available as an option later within the 12 months for other Chrysler models. While I couldn’t find exactly how much this thing cost as an option, it was dealer installed and may very well be financed with the worth of the automobile.
The Visorphone stayed around long enough to be available as an option on the cab forward LH cars within the mid Nineties and was presumably dropped not long after that. It’s strange to take into consideration just how far and fast we’ve come from having quirky, obscure options like a cellular phone built right into a visor to hands free and voice control in such a short while. I’d kill to own a Recent Yorker with this feature though.
This Article First Appeared At jalopnik.com
