Cassette Tape

My '05 Prius with JBL radio has a cassette tape player with controls on the steering wheel. Perfect. My wife's '06 has essentially the same JBL radio without cassette. I find this incredibly annoying. I run several Pioneer and Yamaha auto-reverse relay record tape decks to record obscure radio programs at odd hours, then I can play them during interminable commutes.

The '05 is great; the tape stops when a bluetooth phone call comes in, just as a CD would stop or the radio would mute. The controls are convenient and contribute to safe driving.

After over a year, I have been told that an '05 radio cannot be put into an 'o6 because the cabling is completely different, it would eliminate the '06 backup camera.....everything to changing radios would cause pig carcasses to rain from the sky. I talked to a guy at JBL who told me that JBL doesn't actually build these things; they're a Toyota product. Not surprisingly, nobody at Toyota will talk to me.

I don't see using a pocket cassette player through the Aux input as a viable alternative. It would be clumsy and dangerous.

Please refrain from informing me about iPods and MP3s; I am quite aware of the existence of such spawn of the devil. I am also aware that I could spend hours a week playing the tapes into the audio port on a computer so that I could rip and burn them to CD. I just don't want to.

Has anybody found an external cassette deck, hopefully one that can interface with the steering-wheel buttons?

I have an FM transmitter, but still need a decent-sized deck. With the state of radio in the SF Bay Area, I have enough trouble programming the buttons of FM1, much less FM2. No problem finding an empty button.

I still have the external Ampex cassette deck I bought to add tape capability to my long-gone '66 Chrysler wagon. It even has a built-in stereo amplifier. So now what - I'm supposed to add two more speakers (or a switch) so I can use 1966 technology to "update" the '06 Prius? Just so Toyota can save 40 cents?