Sonora
Sonora-Radio, Puteaux
Head office and works:
5, rue de la Mairie
Puteaux, near Paris
(from about 1932; today rue du 8 Mai 1945)
The name comes from America. Sonora had started there with chiming clocks and gramophones and advertised with the line “clear as a bell” – hence the bell in the emblem. In 1927 private backers were allowed to found a Société Sonora S.A. of their own in France and to carry on the American name, emblem and slogan.
Around 1932 Sonora took over a works at Puteaux near Paris, on part of the site of the Osram lamp factory. Radio sets and radiogram combinations were built there, and from 1950 television sets as well. For decades the firm advertised its “Franco-American engineering”.
Towards the end of the 1950s competition forced Sonora to work with Continental Edison: between 1955 and 1960 a whole series of sets appeared that differed only in the emblem. Later Sonora was absorbed into Continental Edison. The name remained and was still on car radios in 1970.
Sonora car equipment
AR 5970 “Autocollant”
The AR 5970 appeared in 1970. It is not built in but set down: the receiver stands on a base with a strongly adhesive pad and is stuck to the dashboard with it – hence the addition “Autocollant”, French for self-adhesive. Sonora reckoned a quarter of an hour for fitting; loudspeaker and telescopic gutter aerial were part of the delivery. The set receives long wave and medium wave, runs on 12 volts and works with six transistors and one diode; the output stage gives 2 watts and is cooled through the metal case. It cost 169 francs, the fixed-mounting AR 135 beside it 129 francs. The same set was sold under three names: as the Sonora AR 5970, as the Continental Edison Autocollant AR 5970 and as the Reela Miniboy.
