Bill Lear demonstrating his Lear Radio recorder, 1949

Years before he set down to work on the famous Learjet, or the 8-track system, inventor William Powell Lear had made a name for himself developing instruments and communications equipment for airplanes. By 1945, Lear Inc. was moving into the consumer electronics field. The company became a licensee of a Chicago-based R&D laboratory called the Armour Research Foundation allowing Lear Inc. access to Armour’s successful wire recording technology, bits of which made their way into his own design for an endless loop wire recorder.