Lead photo of original 914 brochure whixh hung on my cubicle wall for months waiting for “my” car to show up followed by the finished car
February 22, 2015
Home at Last
and complete
So my Porsche guru Llew and I have both noticed, as you also might have, that prices for 914s are climbing rapidly…and there are lots of reasons, starting with the fact that the car has been under-appreciated by the market for 50 years. Of course, the most desirable remain the six cylinder and early 2.0 liter versions…understandably as these compensate for the most glaring downside of the car…very modest performance of the 1.7, 1.8, and the later 2 liter engines.
So what made me literally “jump the gun” with my tongue hanging our to get on a wait list for the car in the Spring of 1970? I guess the first, foremost, and easiest answer was those seven letters on the engine deck lid…seven I never thought I would ever see on a car I’d own.
But that is over-simplistic. My first intent educationally was to get a degree in some form of engineering. In order to maintain various means to finance my higher education I had to switch to Economics when my math grades threatened the minimum 3.0 GPA I needed to finance my continuation in college. The car's features had great appeal for my still undampened appreciation for good engineering.
And the 914 was so much ahead of its time the early articles about the car in the auto world press really got my blood pumping. From the start these were less than impressed with the car’s acceleration…I could care less. I had a motorcycle which was a literal “pocket rocket” that could leap off tjhe line so quick it was all I could do to hang onto it. At that point in my life cars were for handling. Acceleration was secondary.
What did capture my attention were features that were either so far ahead of their time, or only present on cars costing a minimum of three times the price of the 914, that the “press pannning” of the car's modest straight line performance was so dismissive as well as unimportant I think most of the buying public simply ignored the “modest” straight line performance.
By the time Porsche “killed” the model as too much of a potential threat to the 911, over 40,000 had been built-by an order of magnitude the largest production volume the company had produced in its history uo to the car's demise in 1975.
In fact, some of those features somehow, though as no surprise to me, have now become fairly common across most of the car universe...absent of course arguably the most important one-the mid engined layout...simply the ideal place for the heaviset component of a car and its impact on handling.
Just a quick reminder: aside from the mid engine, there are these features which were pretty unique in 1970 at any price, no less the sub $4000 tag for the 914:
four wheel disc brakes
electronic fuel injection
removable and stowable hard top
built in crash bar
five speed transmission
30 mpg efficiency and a range of over 400 miles between fillups
Centralized fuel tank location for safety
magnesium Porsche transaxle housing and gears straight off the 911 except for the final linkage
“Hidden” popup headlights
So ok, maybe the idea of a bench seat for the passenger wasn't the best idea, and the seat belts are by far the worst of any car I've owned. The shift linkage is, understandably, a bit vague...after all the rod has to go all the way to the far rear of the driveline as the tranny sits in the car “backwards” relative to its location in the 911. And the performance is indeed...modest, though driven like a race car (foot on the gas pedal to the floor until you reach your desired speed or need to brake) I have no problem staying with modern cars...and its handling makes it easy to do things most people won't attempt even with modern cars that are more than up to the task.
The biggest initial factor in the development of the model was the relationship between two parts of the Porsche family...the Peich's who developed VW, and Ferry and that side of the Porsche line.
The four cylinder 914 was never intended to be a Porsche...it was a joint Porsche-VW project, and only the 914-6 was to be sold by and badged as Porsche. The four cylinder cars were badged in Europe as “VW-Porsche” and that badge was the only direct reference to Porsche on the car.It was intended to be sold by VW dealers.
BUT, and this is important...the design, engineering, and construction of the main unibody was done by Karmann and is identical for either version of the model. It was only after that construction that the ones intended for VW were shipped to them for completion, while the ones to become the 914-6 went to Porsche for final assembly.
Of course the 914-6 also got a two liter, six cylinder Porsche motor and Weber carburation, while the 914-4 got a VW unit also used in some VW models. The rest of the drivetrain...the transaxle, was pure Porsche in both cases, though of course the gearing was different...but it is the identical magnesium housing of the 911 and uses gears that are also 911 units.
And then
VW backed out of the deal. Porsche was then faced with a dilemma. 1They could drop the whole idea, market the car as originally intended- a hybrid Porsche/VW, or sell it as a pure Porsche offering. The fear that the 911 design was growing “long of tooth, since it began life as the 356 and had been around since the 1940s,” was part of the rationale for the 914 to begin with. Since Porsche's biggest market had already become the US, the decision was made to market the car in Europe as the “VW-Porsche” as originally intended, with only the -6 as a pure Porsche brand. But in the US it was decided to brand the car only as a Porsche and to sell it only through Porsche dealers, likely to test a “non-Porsche-lookiing” design's acceptance in their largest market. In Europe the -4 got no pure Porsche badging, but in the US both the steering wheel horn rim and the engine deck lid got Porsche graphics. Oddly, neither the -6 nor the -4 got Porsche nose badges; to this day the only Porsche models lacking such ids.
The -4 in Europe was carbureted and had upgraded performance, but due to ever more stingent US pollution abatement laws, the US cars got the then revolutionary EFI designed for the VW 411 series, one of the very first “mass market” fuel injection systems, and (unfortunately) more modest performance, which is what the press focused on almost exclusively, except for intentionally showing how “unattractive” the headlights are when in the “up” position by photographing them from an eye level only a two year old has...and failing to mention both the vsual and aerodynamic advantages of the “pop up” design and that in the dark the profile would hardly be visible.
US law also mandated increased side visibility in the dark, so a last minute “kludge” of “hockey puck” shaped marker lenses in the front fenders were added,, which did little to endear the public to the design of the car.
As for performance, the press also “conveniently” forgot that the history of Porsche road cars prior to the 911 did not exactly emphasize acceleration. In fact, the performance of the -4 was right in line with most of the prior 356 models upon which Porsche built their fame
As you can see, I took possession of my 1970 914 on July 8 (verify)of that year. Photo of original invoice for car. NB-do I want to include the details of the price change due to options I didn't order, etc?Typical of VDO gauges of the era, the odometer broke at xxx,xxx miles... the engine was rebuilt at San Carlos Motors sometime in the early 1980s, and the car has not been a “daily driver” since the late 70s. Still,the basic machine likely has many more miles then show on the odometer.
Fast forward many years and many miles later and the car had suffered quite a bit. The odometer breaking (a cmmon thing with VDO units) unfortunately did not stop the aging. There was so much paint on the car that, among other flaws, the deck behind the back window was a spider web of deep cracks (I had learned the hard way I was no car painter when I clumsily resprayed it back to its original white). Somehow, though I've forgotten the details, there was a long rip in the driver seat cushion. 
Kinda sad
There was a tear in the carpet over the side rail where a piece of lomber I was carrying for some project tore through.
A common flaw in the early serial number cars was twofold: The waffle weave material on the dash peeled and though I tried to recement it in place this was unsuccessful, and ditto the cushioned top padding on the door upholstery.
This was held in place by a metal rod tucked under the material, which was poorly anchored in the cheap door panel foundations, made of some sort of pressed paper product.
And there were other issues. Sitting at the only red light on the MacArthur Causeway I was rear ended by an out of state driver who never even braked, knocking me out and into the middle of the intersection. The rear end was pretty messed up and, naive as I was, the repair shop did really shlock job of heavy bondo sculpting rather than appropriate and needed metal work. But some of the later paint issues were due to having them repaint the car in silver. This was then refreshed yet again just after we moved to the SF area. NO wonder the paint was so thick!
I don't recall why, but at some point maybe the car would not even run. At any rate, it remained parked even after being trailered to my new workshop in Jackson, a place finally large enough to have allowed me to work on it.
The car became a dusty and forgotten convenient place to store things on top of in the half of the building I used for that purpose.
Fast fowared about two decades. I had been using my Dodge 2500 longbed pickup as a daily driver...the equivelant of an Amador County universal "car," as such beasts are the predominant form of transport in Amador County. But at about ten miles pre gallon around town, the fuel cost was ridiculous.
Besides, what the heck had I built that shop for, if not to do "car stuff?"
So I contacted my friend and Porsche guru Llew Kinst and reached an agreement with him on helping to restore the car.
I had the car stripped to bare metal to start the process of putting it back to its correct color. I found a place in the Sacramento area which did this work using baking soda. When pumped out at high pressure the stuff basically "exploded" and blasted the paint off without distorting or pitting the underlying metal.
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| Believe it or not, the way it looks here is GOOD news |
I had met a fellow through the Crosely Club who, along with his brother did car restorations as a side hustle to their day jobs, on their property in Northern Nevadaa, I go the body work and painting done for far less than a fullltime shop would have charged.
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| Work underway in Ernie's old shop Painted and progressing |
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| Cleaned up trim waiting for return of the car |
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| Powder coated engine sheet metal |
I kept most of the interior original, but needed to refresh the carpets, dash covering, and door panels, as well as the driver's cushion and back pad, and interior carpeting. Firtuatenly there was a very skilled and reasonably priced upholsterer just a bit further up the mountain from me who did the work at a very reasonable cost.
Llew did a mechanical refresh including the addition of upgraded rear springs and a front anti-rollbar, new brake rotors, and installation of a later, “side shifter” transaxle.2 He also had the black engine covers, intake manifolds, and black rocker panels powder coated. Llew had removed the “hocky puck” lights and filled in the holes in the fenders prior to the painting, returning the car to the original intended look, which is also how the European cars were fitted. He also graciously offered to provide, at a reasonable price, rare and lovely Pedrini custom wheels to replace the mundane stock steel wheels with VW hub caps (though lacking the VW embossed logo). These too were sand blastd by him and sent out to be powder coated. Not cuttijng any corners we did five so even the spare is a Pedrini.
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| Restored and rare Pedrini Wheel |
I replaced the door threshold plates with new, aftermarket units. The front and rear carpets and much of the weatherstripping was fine even after almost half a century, but I did replace the front trunk surround. The weatherstripping around the rear window glass was shot, and replacement of that required also replacing the window.
There was only one major mechanical glitch that occurred as part of the refresh, though getting the original and revolutionary EFI working was challenging and a bit like alchemy, with all sorts of semi-electronic/semi-mechanical items like an altitude sensing barometer to debug. That glitch was, when first fired up, it only ran on two cylinders. The EFI uses a separate set of points on the unique distributor to fire the fuel injectors. We had put in a new unit, but it was defective. Since electrical parts are not returnable, at least not from where we sourced them (a very secretive and not well known place owned by a reclusive old buddy of Llew's), we simply put back the old ones, which were in "as new" condition despite the years since the engine rebuild.
Boom! Problem solved, though there were lots of other challenges getting this archane and enigmactic system to work properly.
The front turn signal lenses were replaced with European style units. The rear lights are original. All replaced parts were retained. Thus the car is very much a “near orignal” and single-owner-since-new example of a car that is so pleasurable to live with and drive I actually stopped considering buying a Ferrari 308 to replace the Siata (described in other issues of this blog). There is nothing other than power and so-called “status” the 308 would do that the Porsche does not do or have. In fact, one could argue that the 914 was a direct ancestor of and possible inspiration for the large production, comparatively low cost Ferrari. Like that model, it has taken decades to be fully appreciated for the landmark it is.
On Llew's trailer
The day it came home
1A similar situation developed later with the 924. Never intended to be a Porsche offering, the car was designed under contract to the company by Audi, and was always intended to be just that...an Audi sports model. Audi backed out and Porsche decided to market the car under their brand...an early and initially equally panned water cooled variant of the product line
2He later returned the original tail shifter to me which had been swapped during the rework
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