Here’s the whole kit & kaboodle:
Those rings may be heavy cardboard, they fit like this:
You may or may not need them depending on the speaker you use (most have mounting holes).
The original speakers had a cloth covering so you could not see the cone thru the mesh:
Pretty easy to make them – like a little bag with a draw string:
One nice thing is that once it is all in place you can connect a battery (and antenna if you want radio) and test the whole set-up as it is basically self-contained:
That was exactly my plan since I have a 12v transformer on my bench for just this king of thing.
Again,if you plan on installing a period radio, the speaker must be 8 ohms. These Kenwood speakers would be fine if you were retrofitting a stereo.
As it turns out, I’m using an after market period correct looking radio from RestoSound and it uses 4 ohm speakers.
I’m also considering using their satellite radio (XM) option, but I don’t want their antenna showing on the dash, the way I did on my BMW Z3. Has anyone ever tried using the satellite radio antenna hidden under the dash?
I required both a new set of donuts from XKs, as well as the originals in place, otherwise the speakers rattle against the grill. If your originals are dust, I’d consider installing two sets from XKs. Maybe give it a whirl first, and then order a second set if you hear a pronounced buzzing.
The PO had chopped and hacked up the bracket and speakers. There were no rings at all. I already placed my order for one set, maybe I can insert a small o-ring or black nylon washer between the speaker grill and the radio bracket to cut down on any vibration.
I’m replying because others are reading this thread, but I recognize your setup Bob requires 4 ohm speakers and you’re probably stereo to boot. But as Michael has been saying the original radios were more often than not hi fi and not stereo. And the Blaupunkts like my Frankfurt TR deLuxe needs an 8 ohm speaker. However if you want a speaker on each side of the console, you can use two 4 ohm speakers wired in series. 4+4=8 ohms. The other consideration is the power rating of a speaker. It’s advisable to match the speaker rating with the amplifier. A lower rated speaker will be more efficient - hence sound better - with a low power radio. Mine only outputs 4 watts. I’ve a thread here: Original Blaupunkt 32471 radio Help
@BobK stated in his original post that he is going with a modern stereo. If you look at the offerings from XKs Unlimited for ideas, you’ll see the whole gamut of retro-looking stereos, faceplates, knobs etc., and, of course, the Kenwood speakers that fit the E-Type console.
When new, my car had been fitted with a monophonic AM/FM radio with a single speaker. The other factory options were a blanking plate, and likely an uprated two speaker system. 8-Tracks had not been invented yet. Cassettes had not been invented yet. True stereo in cars had not been invented yet, to my knowledge. All this is to say that in a loud sports car like the E-Type, the sound sucked, and at speed with the top down, you could barely hear it.
When my dad and I acquired the car in 1971, I installed an early model cassette player, “Carsette by Tenna.” It had its own amplifier and was too big to fit in the console, so I cut a slot out of the fiberboard glove box cubby, shoved it in and wired it up to some outboard speakers, which I set behind the seats. I applied electricians tape around the hacked cubby fixture to make it look “pretty!” (Note: I had just graduated high school and didn’t have much in the way of funds. My dad was my partner in the neglected car which had been a high school shop project.)
At the time, the setup was the best offered. It worked fine until the player was stolen a year later–the perp sliced a hole in the convertible top.
I had also wired in a 1/4 stereo headphone jack (the little 1/8 kind wouldn’t be invented until Sony’s Walkman ten years later.) With those big headphones on at speed it was quite the surreal experience! And dangerous, yes! Ahhh youth…
When I restored the car in the 80s, I installed a blanking plate, as I showed the car in JCNA concours for a few years, and an aftermarket stereo will cost you major points.
Beginning in 2013, I modernized my car sound, tweaked it over the ensuing years, and finally have an excellent solution:
Hidden stereo amplifier from woodyscustomshop (2013)
Kenwood KFC-1664S speakers with speaker rings from XKs Unlimited (2013)
Kenwood KSC-SW11 Compact Enclosed Subwoofer from Amazon (2016)
Aston Innovations SoundTek A2+ remote Bluetooth controller that connects to my smartphone automatically when the ignition switch is turned on, also from Amazon. (2020)
Note that the controller can be tucked away and the subwoofer unplugged and removed for show; there is no evidence of a stereo in place.
I think the sound is as good as it gets. Photos above in my earlier post.
Actually they had - both appeared around 1963. But of course they took a bit to catch on.
And four track cartridges and players appeared in 1962.
Thanks Tom, and George and John also. Go Earl Muntz. Gosh I hated those 4-tracks (Stereo-Pak as I recall).
Sounds like you followed a similar path as I did Tom…learning by grief. And you got yourself to a good system now. But what I plan is to reinstall the original radio that now works. It’ll be cool just to hear it hum away. I may even put a little Bluetooth transmitter in the cigar lighter and play Spotify on the radio. But more than likely the radio will be a decoration and I’ll play good sounds from my cell phone to a JBL Charge III that’ll sit behind the seats. No wires, no fuss, easy to adapt as technology advances.
I stand corrected about the date of invention of the cassette tape. But not put into cars in stereo format until 1968. That’s documented.
How old are you guys, anyway? I’m 67, and I can guarantee you that “car stereo cassette tape systems” were not around until 1971 or so, and I was an early adopter, considered either a genius by my audiophile friends, or crazy by my parents and other “adults.” Not mono. Stereo.
I had a stereo home cassette recorder, and the aforementoned “Carsette by Tenna.” I recorded my own tapes, about two years before the legendary Dolby noise reduction system was introduced to reel-to-reel. And that was for the masses, not in some lab somewhere.
At 18, in 1971, I recorded Traffic’s “John Barleycorn Must Die,” James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James,” “Johnny Winter And Live,” and “Seatrain” from vinyl to cassette for a cross country trip with my brother in my 1967 OTS. We thought that would be enough music for the whole trip. We started in Connecticut, and by Chicago, we were sick of it.
Pre-recorded rock and roll tapes were barely available at that point, but somewhere along the way we found George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass.” That livened things up for awhile. Then the tape vanished. We looked all over the damn car for it. I accused my brother of losing or stealing it, which of course he denied.
That was 1971. Flash to 1978 when I removed the E-Type seats with plans of restoration. There, under the passenger seat was the tape! Easy to lose in a tight car, but impossible to reach for underneath because of tight hand clearance.
One of a million stories…
Seventy and in 1967 I received a Muntz combination 4 and 8 track tape player as a Christmas present.
Eight track cartridges had a built in rubber pinch roller. Four track cartridges didn’t; the machine had a roller that popped through a hole in the underside of the cartridge and perfored that function. Only two sides on a four track, 4 sides on an 8 track. Four tracks were a dollar cheaper than the same album on an 8 track.
I think the first factory installed 8 tracks were on selected Ford cars.
Hi,
That’s right, and I installed mine in series to get 16 Ohms as I was using the old Blaupunkt (mono) Frankfurt. 
I did add the DIN-connector with a 3.5mm plug inside the Series 3 center console cubby box (there is a route and wires too as Series 3 with AC had the cigar lighter mounted in the cubby box in the middle) so I can play my 1972 playlists from my iPhone occasionally if I get bored with the radio broadcast. Back in the day music was mixed and mastered for that stuff. It’s amazing how good stuff like Deep Purple’s Machine Head, Black Sabbath’s Vol. 4 etc. period rock sounds in mono from those non-hifi speakers and radio. Rock on! 
Cheers!
Hi,
Being born in 1969 I had not even heard of “Four tracks” before I read this, and nobody over here even had 8-tracks back in the day (but stereo C-casette decks were popular already in the early 1970’s over here, we got one in our Volvo in 1976) but I do now have an Audiovox Surround Stereo Quadraphonic 8-track deck and FM radio from 1975 in our 1975 XJ6C (BTW FM radio allowed in addition to stereo also SQ Stereo Quadraphonic broadcasts, actually is the master is SQ or QS it still works with an SQ/QS decoder/amp regardless if the source is FM broadcast, C-cassette or CD!). So I can listen to Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to The Machine” where they sing “he loved to drive in his Jaguar” in period correct 1970’s Surround Stereo from a 1975 8-Track tape playing on a 1975 deck in a 1975 car. 
Cheers!
PS. And the Q8’s only have two tracks, just like LP’s two sides, as they have “discreet” four channel surround stereo on the tracks. Front left, Front right, Rear left, Rear right. I have the test tapes too! 
I remember when Quadraphonic came out and was predicted to be the next big thing. Ford pushed it for a bit, it never really caught on in the U. S. and then it died.
I also recall home made attempts to kind of replicate the sound through the employment of a third speaker. IIRC, a wire was ran from the positive lead of each of the two stereo speakers, one to the positive and the other to the negative terminal of the third speaker. I forge the physics of what that did and why.
Hi,
Yes, there are “Ford Quadraphonic sample 8-track” cassettes on e-bay every now and then.
Of course there were also 3-4 competing vinyl standards at the time too, and not compatible with one another, a bit like the vidso wars (which was won by the technically inferior standard, all of the others had better quality, Betamax, V2000, Video8).
Surround stereo came back with the digital age. Dolby DTS, Dolby Surround 3.1, then 5.1, 7.1 etc. thanks to home theaters. Now it’s back in cars, but being a computing professional I love to keep my free time mechanical.
I can easily understand the Q8 and open reel four track, SQ and QS using a modulation shift to “hide and reveal” the rear channels is almost within my comprehension, but I think the CD-4 is pretty wild, that with 100% analogue technology you take two channels (the rear left and rear right) raise their frequency by 30 kHz, engrave them on a vinyl, use a very accurate needle and cartridge to pick it and then recognize it and drop it by 30 kHz, well that goes a little beyond my noodle. Yet I have a Danish made turntable, B&O Beogram 6000 that does it all with analogue electronic components. Blows my mind!
Back into cars, in Europe the only manufacturers I know that offered Quadraphonic 8-track (Q8) in a new car were…Ferrari with their 400GT and Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Neither of which were sold new in Finland at all between 1965 and 1985.
Cheers!
I think we’re getting lost in words here. Sorry for my part in not being clear.
I’m talking stereo cassettes as we know them, not 4 track and 8 track cartridges. As I understand from research, Ford introduced the stereo 8 track in 1965, so I was wrong about that. All Jaguar had were mono radios, of course.
My “Carsette by Tenna” in 1971 was the first car stereo cassette player I’d ever seen. Nobody in my geek circle was talking about them. Again, not 8 track or 4 track mono or stereo. Cassette, so you could record your playlist from your favorite vinyl at night, and take your tunes on the road the next day.
I was a hi fi nut as a high school student and had a stereo reel to reel recorder as a freshman in 1967. It was a Radio Shack model, pretty advanced for its time. There were no stereo cassette recorders or car players available to the masses in 1967 that I’m aware of.
Then there was this alternative that at least one E-Type owner enjoyed:
