Would you believe that the last car to come with a tape deck was not some mid-2000s budget model like a Nissan Sentra or a Chevy Aveo, but a 2010 luxury convertible with a V8 engine? We’re talking about the Lexus SC430, once marketed as the “jewel of Lexus.” What’s more, Lexus didn’t actually discontinue the tape deck option, rather, the tape player disappeared from the American auto market because the SC430 itself was retired after the 2010 model year.

We probably sound like some old-timers rocking on the porch right now, but we think there’s an argument to be made that in-car audio peaked with the tape player. CDs had a tendency to skip, streaming services either charge a monthly fee or make you listen to ads (or both), and the radio gives you limited control over what you’re hearing. So we’re not even kidding when we say that the cassette player was actually part of what made this car such a sweet deal.

You kids don’t know how good we had it back in the day.

The following is based on recent sales listings as well as literature published by the automakers, with any conclusions or opinions provided thereupon being those of the author.

The Jewel Of Lexus

A luxurious grand tourer, what really made the SC 430 stand out in a parking lot was its retractable aluminum hard-top, offering you the full roadster experience when you take the top down, or a comfy luxury coupe vibe with the roof enclosed. Inside, you’d find standard heated leather seats, dual-zone A/C, leather and wood trim, and a roomy front row, with 42.6 inches of legroom.

Built For Comfort, Not For Speed

The SC 430 prioritized driver and front passenger comfort above pretty much everything else. To that end, while the car was certainly capable, it wasn’t quite as much fun to drive as some of its competitors, like the 360-hp BMW 6 Series convertible. But, if you knew that going in, you’d get exactly what was promised, which was pretty much a luxury yacht shrunken down to the size of a two-door convertible.

The Lexus SC ran for nearly two decades, from the 1992 model year all the way to 2010, before being quietly discontinued at the end of the 2000s. One can easily chart slowing sales across the second generation, from 5,847 units sold in the US in 2006, to 720 in 2009. Lexus dismissed any reports to this effect as “unfounded speculation,” so the plan may have already been in place to phase the SC out (and maybe that’s why they never bothered pulling the tape deck).

Where Can You Even Get Cassette Tapes These Days?

Major and independent artists still release albums on cassette tape now and then, usually in limited runs for only the most hardcore of fans. 2002 may be the last year of the cassette tape as a mainstream media format, though, having seen the release of Eminem’s The Eminem Show, and Let Go by Avril Lavigne. While it’s easy to pinpoint the SC 430 as the last car with a tape deck, there isn’t really a final cassette album, so much as a long, slow phasing out.

You Can Build A Tape Collection For Pennies

The easiest way to find cassette tapes to play in the car is to hit up thrift stores and check eBay. It’s not hard to find classic albums for pocket change, but this does limit you to older music. Thankfully, cassette tapes are still a popular archiving format, which means you can still buy five and ten packs of blank tapes from Walmart and Amazon.

From there you’ll need a tape recorder to get the music from your laptop or your phone to the cassette tape. This part is easier than it sounds. You just need an auxiliary cable with two male connector ends. Connect that cable from your computer’s headphone jack to the tape recorder’s microphone jack, and dub that mixtape like we did in the old days.

Installing An Aftermarket Tape Deck Might Not Be So Easy

An auction for a 2010 SC 430 with 19,000 miles on the odometer closed at $29,680 last October, and Kelley Blue Book puts the current fair purchase price at $18,150, less than a third of its original $68,380 MSRP. This is a Lexus, so you know it’s a reliable used car buy, especially if you can find mileage this low. It’s also equipped with one of the most reliable engines ever made, which makes it even more appealing. There are also loads of high-mileage models available for less than $10,000. If you can find one with a decent service history, it’s not a bad price for a piece of history powered by a V8.

If that still seems a bit steep for a fifteen-year-old convertible, well, unfortunately, getting a car that already has a tape player installed is still the most economical option. Cassette decks are big, bulky units, while modern infotainment systems are built to take up considerably less space. This means that packing a cassette player into the dash of a car that wasn’t built to hold one would require extensive remodeling. Not only that, vintage tape players are a seller’s market. These people know what they have, and it’s not unusual to see old Panasonic and Pioneer systems going for $230 and up, or considerably more if we’re talking about premium brands like Alpine.

You Might As Well Go All In On Nostalgia

For all the benefits cassette tapes may offer over other sound formats, we can admit that the main reason for listening to tapes is the nostalgia factor. To that end, we say you might as well go all-in and buy a used car from the era when cassettes were king. To that end, pretty much any model from the early 2000s or late 1990s should be available with a tape player, and if you want something a little fresher, the Ford Crown Vic was one of the last holdouts, alongside the SC 430, still blasting cassettes well into the late 2000s. So if you’ve been looking for an excuse to hit up a police auction for a cop-spec Ford, that’s as good a reason as any.

Sources: Lexus, Bring a Trailer, eBay, Kelley Blue Book