Clocks & Music
1939 Zenith 5S319 "Racetrack" Walnut Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
1939 Zenith 5S319 "Racetrack" Walnut Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
This 1939 Zenith Model 5S319, nicknamed the "Racetrack" for its distinctive oval dial bezel, is a compact walnut tabletop set introduced in the summer of 1938 as part of Zenith's rounded "cube" era lineup. The dial itself carries the Zenith "Long Distance" script at its center, ringed by Standard Broadcast and Foreign Broadcast scales marked in kilocycles and megacycles, with five ivory pushbuttons and two tuning knobs set into a stepped panel below, and a faux zebra-striped veneer accenting the top and right side of the case.
The 5S319 is a five-tube AM and shortwave superheterodyne set, notable for introducing Zenith's Transcontinental Automatic Tip-Touch push-button tuning, a feature new to the 1939 model year that allowed a listener to jump instantly to preset stations rather than tuning by hand. Its rounded, curved-cornered cabinet marked a clear stylistic shift from the sharper tombstone and cathedral shapes of the earlier 1930s, pointing toward the softer, more streamlined table radio designs Zenith would refine further into the 1940s.
The same chassis found in the 5S319 was also housed in a small tombstone cabinet and a chairside table design, but the Racetrack's oval dial and zebra-striped veneer have made this particular cabinet variant one of the more sought after and recognizable Zenith table radios among collectors, prized as much for its dial design as for its performance.
This example has been restored and equipped with Bluetooth through a 1/8 inch adapter, allowing a smartphone, tablet, computer, or record player to connect and play through the radio's original tube driven sound. The result pairs modern convenience with the warm tone of a vintage Zenith set, housed in one of the most distinctive and collectible small tabletop cabinets of the late Art Deco period.
