Granted, it's not the Japanese christmas tree you were probably expecting.
I was able to get a very reasonably priced Becker Grand Prix 2000 to replace the Mexico Diversity. This Grand Prix 2000 is a rare and pretty expensive model in that it has support for a Silverstone 10-CD changer. It also has all the same bells and whistles as the Mexico Diversity, and more: this one has RDS. I can now see channel names on the display.
The Becker 1319, or Grand Prix 2000 with CD capability, was introduced in 1991. It was sometimes installed in 1991 model-year C126 cars, but I believe it is very rarely seen in 126 chassis cars. Usually Mexico head units were used as those where the top of the line. The Grand Prix line was positioned below the Mexicos.
Thus the silver strip does not belong in the center console of my car. This is surely a peeve, but fortunately, there is grey everywhere in my car, so the silver strip at least somewhat fits. Looking at it in a positive way: installing this radio gives the interior a two-year facelift.
The radio is very nice compared to the Mexico. It has a way more sensitive tuner, meaning I get noticeably better radio reception. It also has way cleaner heads for the cassette, meaning cassette sound quality is excellent. Dare I say, cassettes in this GP2000 sound better than MP3s I played with the christmas tree I had in 2010.
More importantly, this radio will not overheat after an hour's listening. Even all the lights work, and the display is perfect!
There are drawbacks, of course. The reason this one was cheap (I paid 130 EUR whereas a perfect unit will cost up to 200 EUR) was that it has bad condensators. The radio takes a while to warm up and in the mean time, there is no radio reception at all. The cassette works, of course, so I can live with no radio until the car is warmed up.
There are other differences, too. The Mexico switched channels instantly. The Grand Prix takes a moment to tune in the new station (I assume this is because the Diversity has dual tuners but don't quote me on this). Also, the volume and tuning controls on the Grand Prix have a less chunky feel to them. Finally, the cassette mechanism is fully manual, whereas the Mexico did some of the work for you.
If I win the lottery, I might have the condensators replaced, and install a CD changer, another 150 EUR worth of audio equipment.
(The blog has now reached current events. Starting now, I'm blogging live.)
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