Motorola 501

The Motorola 501 iHorn is made from a Motorola 1951 Model 501 car radio and a jubilee horn.  Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, a battery manufacturer who made a device that allowed radios to run on household current. In the 1930's the big radio companies all ended in "ola" so Galvin, who was then moving into making automobile radios, changed the name of his company to Motorola.  1950’s was a post World War II explosion of automobile production and sales with almost 58,000,000 automobiles produced and sold, compared to a total U.S. population of only 179, 323,175! 

The horn is a 1940’s Jubilee Piggyback horn.  It was called a piggyback horn because attached to it was a second smaller “snail” type horn, each of which emitted a different tone, making the horn capable to two tones with volume.