Clocks & Music
1947 Sonora WAU-243 Ivory Bakelite "Rotor Dial" Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
1947 Sonora WAU-243 Ivory Bakelite "Rotor Dial" Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
This Sonora Model WAU-243 is one of the most sculptural radio designs of the late Art Deco and early postwar period, its ivory Bakelite cabinet built around a dramatic maroon "giant rotor dial" mounted flush across the top of the case rather than on the front face. Tuning numbers from 55 to 160 are marked directly on the rotating dial itself, paired with a column of four amber pushbuttons set into a stepped front panel alongside horizontal grille louvers and a single maroon volume knob below.
The WAU-243 is a five-tube AM broadcast set covering the standard band from 535 to 1620 kc, tuned either through its automatic pushbuttons or by hand, turning the large maroon rotor dial itself rather than a pointer moving across a fixed scale. Sonora marketed the set as a showpiece of styling as much as performance, and its top-mounted dial remains one of the more unusual and immediately recognizable tuning mechanisms of the period, giving the whole cabinet an almost helmet-like silhouette from the front.
Though its dramatic, streamlined design reads as classic late-1930s Art Deco, the WAU-243 was actually introduced in 1947, evidence of how far that visual language carried into the postwar years at Sonora even as most other manufacturers had moved toward simpler, more restrained cabinets. It stands today as one of the more theatrical examples of Deco styling surviving well past the era most associate with the movement.
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 Sonora set, housed in one of the boldest and most sculptural radio cabinets of its era.
