>I SWEAR I remember him actually having
>a real phone, or something that looked like it,
>mounted in his car.

It probably looked something like this:

http://tinyurl.com/s3huf

These 'radiotelephones' were common on boats up until the advent of the cell phone, and to a lesser degree were also installed in cars. You reached the 'radio telephone' operator at the phone company who patched through your call. Anyone with a VHF radio could listen in. If memory serves the calls were half-duplex, so the participants had to say "over." I think later systems switched back and forth automatically.

I remember as a kid riding BC Ferries - The pay phones on board the ferries were radiophones.