My Sony bling stereo finally gave up and it was time to replace it with something proper. I did look at some of the current Sony head units but everything looked like it was ripped out of starship enterprise. No go
I ended up buying a used CDR-220. It looks somewhat period correct and goes well with the 993 gauges in my Targa. The knobs had the common "sticky decay" sickness. So I did the plastidip treatment and they look like new.
One thing with the CDR220 is that it's optimized for a viewing angle of about 30 degrees. In the older cars you're looking more straight at the display and there is almost no contrast. I had to modify the display unit to optimize the contrast for looking straight at it.
Then I wanted to be able to play stuff off my iPhone. I bought a Logitech Bluetooth adapter and installed it permanently into the head unit. I'm really pleased with the outcome. See here for some shots. As an added benefit the Bluetooth adapter's blue LED is visible through the volume knob. Kinda cool
