Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse” Part I: The 914 Came First

Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse”

Part I: The 914 Came First

The automotive giants in my life are, of course, Porsche and Ferrari. The “Little Mouse?” That is the Siata, much of whose underlying mechanical bits came from the famous 500cc Fiat called the “Topolino,” and “Topo” is Italian for “mouse” and adding a “lino” ending to a noun makes it a diminutive.

The 914 Came First

I began gravitating towards smaller, more nimble sports machinery right after high school, as I read about MG, Austin Healey, Porsche, and Ferrari in “Road and Track” and “Car and Driver”. And as I have written in earlier articles, this resulted in my move into this world first with my gold Corvair, thorugh my years with Austin Healey “Spridgets,” and finally to the 914 (“From A Blue Condor to Sports Cars...I and II” and “BRG and the Five Speed Brown Bag.” In reality, up until the initial stories about the new mid-engined Porsche appeared in late 1969 I thought those seven letters were highly unlikely to appear on anything I would be able to own.

So a Porsche priced at $3600 would get my attention no matter what else it might have promised. While that was a stretch, the next nearest model, the 911, might as well have had the price tag of a Saturn V in terms of my ability to afford it.

But it was more than that. Though to this day the term “peculiar” gets applied to the car's looks, I found it refined and handsome. I was already aware of how difficult styling a mid-engined car was, especially in terms of daily practicality and rear visibility. Once I actually knew more about this configuration I also appreciated, though I still don't know how they did it, the total absence of annoying engine noise levels in the cockpit.

The press reviews were not kind to the car. After calling it “compact but spacious” and “a well conceived machine” Car and Driver went on to say “That is the outer boundary of its excellence. The name Porsche is automatically associated with performance, mechanical refinement and quality workmanship – all assets of which the 914 is conspicuously bankrupt. It's about half the cost of a 911S – and about half as good as a 911 S.” 

Of course comparing a car priced at under $4000 with one selling for over $8000 is dirty pool, and note there is no comment about handling. Nor did I know, at that point, that detail build quality of the interior was indeed less than stellar. That would come later as both the padded tops of the door panels and the “waffle weave” dash upholstery kept peeling no matter how many times it was “repaired” under warranty and, later, by me. And it took many more years before the top began to squeak, the dash to develop a crack, and the odometer to fail. However, it also would take that same length of time to learn that the same year 911, at least in the comparable Targa body style, had all those defects and more...body rattles far beyond anything my 914 evidences, even after one major and one minor collision.

Nor did I know (or care, back then) that this was not the “weird” departure from the rear engined design Porsche snobs thought was one of the defining identifying characteristics of a “true” Porsche. I doubt I even cared that the car was build by Karmann with an engine created for VW...and was considered by all and sundry to be just that...a Volkswagen, though as it turns out much of the suspension as well as the transmission are identical with the components used in the contemporary 911 and were not VW units at all!

What I did know was that not even the only other road going mid-engined car of the day...a true exotic selling for over four times the price, came with all the features of the 914. While that car did have four wheel disc brakes and a five speed gearbox, it had neither two fully usable trunks nor a removable Tagra top which stored in one of those trunks without detracting from its usability or capacity.

From Wikipedia
The Lmborghine Miura of 1966
Believed to be the first rear-mid engined sports car

The five speed in the 914 is identical to the one used in the 911 except that it mounts behind the engine rather than in front of it, and the ring and pinion is mounted on the other side of the box (otherwise you would have five speeds in reverse and only one “wall climber” going forward). Ffth is a .71:1 overdrive this results in a (for the times) relaxed sub 2800RPM at 55 MPH while still maintaining an ability to hold that speed on an 8% grade. Fourth is .93:1 rather than being direct, which provides a lot more “grunt” for acceleration on those grades (which are typical here in the Sierra foothills) while still allowing you to maintain speeds on grades as steep as 12%. Clever...and practical. I never found myself unable to hold the speed I wanted in the mountains...and of course the superb handling meant this exceeded what most other contemporary cars could manage safely.

The biggest criticism of the car by the experts, after lack of power, was vague shifting. It is true that the early “tail shift” linkage was not exactly precise, but this may be said of any early mid-engined design. The shift rods (or cables in some, mainly much later, versions) have to run from the cockpit all the way past the engine, and connect to the box at the very rear. Particularly as bushings wear, the shifting gets less and less precise. On later cars, and in my case with a swap during the 2012-2015 “refresh” pf the car, the design was modified so the connection to the box was shorter, the so-called “side shift” modification.

Postion of the shifter on a "side shift" transmission
A "tail shifter" would have the linkage enter the box byond the top of the photo,
a linkage more than a foot longer

This helps quite a bit, but a 914 is not a car you can just “slam” from gear to gear. Given that I have always double clutched both up and down shifting in order to save the syncros this has never bothered me (and because it is so sexy and “race-driver-like” from the days when transmissions were “crash boxes”).

I couldn't even drive nor look at the car in person...the local dealers simply did not have one they could afford to leave on the showroom floor as the cars sold as quickly as they came off the boat. In fact, when I went in to plunk down my deposit at DeMaria Porsche-Audi in Coral Gables all I got in return was my name on a waiting list and a sales brochure showing, oddly as it turned out, the same white color I did not order but did wind up taking when my name came to the top of the list.

The inside of the brochure from which I ordered my car
It is now well worn after spending months pinned to my cubicle wall at work
waiting for my name to come to the top of the order list

Time has been kind to the 914. It remains the best selling car in Porsche's history, and as experience actually driving the model has spread the word that the handling is nothing short of amazing. Enthusiasts today, helped in no small measure by the internet, are much more sophisticated and better informed. They really do realize that the history of Porsche and VW have always been intertwined even to the literal level of family as well as shared parts, marketing, and engineering. In fact, without Volkswagen there is some doubt Porsche as a company would exist.

Also many now know that the first cars bearing those seven letters were actually mid and not rear engined...the first machines built in Gmund after the war, as well as the massive 12 and 16 cylinder Auto Union pre-WWII racers. The 914 shares its engineering theory with these as well as with the 904 race car, arguably one of the most beautiful cars ever built.

Most of us who now respect the model would agree with Motor Trendthat “the car is so stable, so flat in cornering, that you want to go quicker and quicker each time until you either exceed the machine's limit or your own, and usually the latter occurs first.” Or as Fred Garretson, part of one of the most famous and successful racing and performance Porsche organizations of the 60s ans 70s is quoted in “Porsche: The Classic Era” by Dennis Adler, “Garretson believes the standard four-cylinder 914 was one of the most underrated cars ever put on the road. 'Granted, it wasn't a powerhouse, but it was probably one of the best handling automobiles you could drive.” 

I had a motorcycle which would win most “stop light drag races.” And now I had a car bearing those legendary seven letters. I loved it then, and I still do...including its “peculiar” looks.

Just after finishing the 2012-2015 "Refresh"
Complete with no "hockey puck" lights, Pedrini wheels, and "Eruro" lenses