Music formats die slow, lingering deaths. The CD has been succumbing for more than two decades – sales peaked in 2000 – but now it may have suffered its final, fatal blow: the last model of car to include a CD player has already been built. According to Which magazine, as of this year Subaru Forester SUVs will no longer accommodate CDs, and the only new vehicle you can buy with a CD player in it is the Isuzu D-Max, which is actually a truck.
Because they are replaced infrequently, cars have always extended the life of old audio technology, serving as travelling museums of sound. The first car with a factory-installed dashboard CD player appeared in 1985, but it would take many of us years to catch up. Long after my family had switched to exclusively CDs in the house, our secondhand car still just had a cassette player, and its door wells were filled with classic tapes such as The Wheels on the Bus and Other Songs. When that car finally went for scrap the cassettes went with it, and an era abruptly came to an end.
