Doug Newcomb

Entertainment in the car has come a long way since the first "fitted" AM radios of 1930. And even back then, a few killjoys wanted to ban in-dash radios for fear of distracting the driver. Thankfully, logic and the love of music prevailed - and with each evolution in mobile entertainment over the past 50 years, drivers and passengers have benefited.

Summer’s here, and it’s time to hit the road. Automotive entertainment used to be restricted to radio and whatever you brought onboard in the form of prerecorded music — from 8-tracks to discs and later iPods. But now that smartphones and tablets have made Internet connectivity possible in the car, a whole new world of content has opened up on the road.

We gathered five of the coolest connected- car gadgets and took them out for a shakedown cruise.

Americans love trucks. Whether they're for carrying stuff, commuting, or just cruising, pickups are so popular that they've been the best-selling vehicles in the US for almost 30 years. For this installment of System Builder, we picked the '06 Dodge Ram 1500 ST Quad Cab (sticker price: $22,050) for an audio-system makeover.