In High School, in the early 70's, I got my first car, which was nothing fancy. It came std with an AM radio. My first upgrade purchase, was an underdash Realistic FM Auto-Reverse Cassette player. I bypassed 8-track and went straight to cassette. Customizing cassettes for car use was enjoyable endeavour during HS and college. The unit was around $100. The few other after-market cassette players with FM that I knew about, were very expensive, around $300.
That said, recording onto CD is a much nicer and easier task.
But, back in the early 70's, you really had good Rock music being aired on FM stations. Now, almost all FM rock is commerical rock hits - Only. But back in the day, having great FM and custom cassettes meant I always had the best of both worlds.