Quartz Clocks In 80's Cars - Why They Exist & Why They Disappeared!

The story behind Quartz clocks and why they were so prominent in cars in the 1980's!

#1980s #1980sCars #QuartzClocks

[ShootingCars]

CARS WERE BETTER IN THE 80’s STICKER NOW AVAILABLE!

[thirdpedalnirvana]

In the 1954 hudson hornet, standard you got a wind up clock. You just wound the spring every time you started the car. As long as you drove every few days, you were fine. The fancy option was a spring wound clock but with an electrode that made contact with the spring as it unwound. When the electrode contacted the spring, a solenoid activated which re-wound the spring. Because it was a solenoid and not a motor, this occurs roughly every 15 minutes. In other words, it didn't wait for the spring to be completely unwound. It alternates between being like 85 and 90 percent wound as long as it is connected to the battery. That way, when you disconnect the battery, the clock continues to keep time for a while, but if you let the clock run out completely you may have to manually wind it a bit to get it working again.

[pauljs]

Even on screen clocks have quartz involved somewhere. Computers generally use at least one timing circuit somewhere to synchronize everything on the system bus, and quartz is used to drive the oscillation. (The external signal is just used for reference in periodic updates by more accurate atomic clocks, but system time is still on the device itself.)

[bwofficial]

I'm a bit of a watch guy, so it's cool to hear you talk about this. Before quartz clocks in cars became a thing, there were electric (not electronic) digital clocks in cars. Imagine a roller odometer but for time and constantly being driven. Some cars had mechanical clocks that were automatically wound by a motor every couple hours. Neither were very reliable.
Proclaiming that a clock was quartz reminds me of late 90s and early 2000s cars proclaiming that they have ABS. My 2001 has a sticker on the driver's window.
Have you ever talked about headlights? It's an interesting evolution, from oil and acetylene to electric to mandated incandescent sealed beams (7" round, then 5.75", then rectangular corresponding to the round sizes) to halogen sealed beams to aerodynamic flush and how the rest of the world never had these regulations. When Ford petitioned the government to allow flush headlights on the 1983 Lincoln Mark VII for styling reasons, the government denied their request. Ford realized they could argue that smooth headlights helped aerodynamics thereby improving fuel economy and emissions and thus increasing safety. The government said "of course you can have aerodynamic headlights!" I'm a lighting geek so that's fascinating as well.

[grandetaco]

1984 I had a 75 nova that had a mechanical clock in it. Car clocks were notorious for not keeping proper time. I read the manual and it said to set the clock regularly and it would eventually keep better time. A month later I was in an accident that totaled the car. The next day I went by the car to take my stuff out of it and the clock time was perfect.

[Coonotafoo]

Well dang, this is just my ignorance at play here, but I always figured that when a clock said "Quartz" on it, I just assumed that the "glass" on the face of the clock was made out of quartz! Lmao! I never bothered to look into it. Thanks for the informative video!

[Rwethereyet]

In the mid to late 60's, Volkswagen dashboard clocks were spring wound automatically with a small 12v motor that would tighten up the clock spring periodically. If you happened to be sitting in the car with the engine off when this happened, you could hear the mechanism go 'ziiiip'. Voila...self winding clock.

[adamsfusion]

I would argue that quartz has become even more prevalent in newer electric ("screen") cars. What was once something used for keeping a human clock accurate is now the metronome for every future car. That is, rather than ticking once every second*, they tick millions of times per second*.

* Actually 32, 768 times per second for human clocks, and still only millions for computational operations. Complex integrated circuits multiply the clock upwards inside the die for numerous reasons.

[richdiscoveries]

Bro, cars are my life, history is my passion. You find the perfect way to merge both of them. Thank you for your time effort and research. Found you recently but love these videos

[yasirsaheed]

Well, even with the digital clocks in displays on car computers & infotainment systems today, despite using GPS or the internet to adjust time, still the timekeeping is done using quartz.

[discerningmind]

I remember getting my first car with a quartz clock. It was wonderful to always have the correct time. Prior to quartz, the clock was the first thing that always broke in a car. Something about when the car's battery is wearing out the voltage runs low and overheats the clock. They just need to be serviced but no one ever did because of the bother. So, if you bought a used car back then very often the clock had already broken or would only work for a matter of hours or a day or two. That all went away with the quartz clock.

[scootermann]

I'd be quite pleased with the mechanical watch that could only drift 2 minutes a year, a few minutes a week is more common

[Carstuff]

I actually went out of the way to find a factory dashboard clock for my 1992 Honda Civic DX sedan. It is a TINY detail, but not having the clock really threw off my ability to keep easy track of time. I could have just used my phone or worn my watch more often, but I do not like touching my phone while I drive, and wearing a watch in 100+ degree heat sucks. You would think I would have fixed the AC in my car instead of yanking everything out. Nah, instead I got excited when I found a junkyard Civic that still had its clock!

[zaydabbas]

Quartz is still used in the RTC of many modern clocks, including clock found in radios or external units. Especially when computers are involved, a clock is used for more than telling time, and crystal resonators are still the most common means to do this.

[thisisnothere]

Seiko released the first quartz wristwatch that was somewhat mass produced in 1969 and dubbed it the ASTRON it cost an insane amount of money and today is one of the most rare seiko watches out there!

[anhedonianepiphany]

I’m going to assume this goes on to reveal that ‘quartz’ timing didn’t disappear but just became so ubiquitous that there was no longer any point in printing the word everywhere, whether such clocks were fully digital or equipped with analogue hands. It’s hard to believe that many are ignorant of quartz oscillators/resonators, considering they’re at the heart of most electronic devices we use every day, though I’ll accept that I have a tendency to overestimate people in general.
Thanks for taking the time (no pun intended) to educate the masses about things that many take for granted.

[mabus]

Lol... I worked at that facility featured at 2:54. At the time it was Lucent... Also, there is entire building hidden underground there not easily visible from satellite shots. True story.

[hGW]

I'm pretty sure all clocks in modern cars still use quartz timekeeping, they just -can- get synchronized over the air now. Quartz clocks are just so dang cheap and accurate enough that there really is no need to miniaturize atomic clocks for this use-case.

[SGTNinja-eerw]

This, again was such a well put together, informative video.. never knew about this

[ToriL]

My 83 Camaro has a quartz clock in the center console and it still works. If the original owner would have optioned for the digital radio, it wouldn't have one. I believe 85 was the last year third gen Camaros had them, the Delco digital radio was standard after that.