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Posted by: julian914 Feb 22 2011, 10:22 AM

Been searching the internet for the last few days trying to find any footage of 914 assembly line production. I've had no luck; has anyone seen any footage like this?
Cheers, Julian

Posted by: McMark Feb 22 2011, 10:41 AM

I've never seen any video, but have you heard of DGVWPB? Das Grosse VW-Porsche Buch?

Posted by: Tom_T Feb 22 2011, 01:20 PM

.... great book, great pix - some of assembly line, great tech info.
.... but all in German, out of print, hard to find & expensive.

There may not have been any video/film footage done in the plant, except maybe internal training or company informational stack by either VW, Porsche, VW-Porsche (their JV) or Karmann, since video wasn't as easy nor commonplace "in the olden days," as today.

Remember that a film or commercial video camera back then weighed 100's of pounds & ran on a dolly!

Perhaps the Porsche &/or VW (?) museums may have something archived that they might release (may have to go through PCNA or PCA), and with VW buying Karmann recently, anything they had will migrate to VW eventually, or at least will need to be accessed through VW. VW & PAG may be more willing to release stuff now, what with talk of a new 914 or 356 or Baby Boxster coming for 2013-14 - the press has used all 3 names for the same mid-engined model proposed under the Boxter/Cayman. They may be releasing it as 1 of the 5 or so new coming models at the Geneva show next month.

These are some books still in print & readily available today & in English (well some Brit & Aussie, but just read it with the appropriate accent Mate! ), which the first is a compendium of 1969-80's period articles about 914s, and the others are more historical treatises with info on the 914's development - with a few historical factory pix. They can be found online for $20-30 apiece, the DGVWPB can run $100-300 - I paid $200 + S&H for mine last year without that nice flyjacket & its pic that shows in Mark's pic.



All are good reading, good info, but al have a few discrepancies & inaccuracies. I don't read/speak German, so I can't say for sure, but I'd guess it has a few too. Most authors/books get a few things wrong from time to time, but that doesn't make the overall effort worthless, nor the author a "Doof".

Enjoy reading them!

Posted by: julian914 Feb 22 2011, 07:54 PM

Thanks for the responses. I knew it was going to be hard to find. I am thinking about tryng PCNA. I kind of got on the search after working on my 914 this weekend and watching the porsche factory film which showed on Discovery Channel. Its funny that you can find old 356 and 911 footage but not the 914. I'll keep playing with the search and post if I find anything. Anyway, time to go lay some carbon fiber.
Cheers, Julian

Posted by: kg6dxn Feb 22 2011, 07:57 PM

What about the Karmann factory? Perhaps you can find some 914's next to a ghia?

Posted by: johannes Feb 23 2011, 06:33 AM

I have a project to make a film about the 914 for the french club... (If only I had time to work on it)... I got all the available footages from Porsche archive service. There is about 20 minutes of footage that has been digitalised but there is no shot from the assembly line. A few shots from the lab and test track. Most footage comes from promotion films and I think they have digitalized all the material they had available. They did go thru all their archives when they worked on the "Porsche Way" DVD that is for sale only at the museum. Unfortunatelly very few 914 footage was used in that "Porsche Way" DVD.

This is the kind of promo footage that is available

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgbaYbEclY


There is much more material available for the 356 because Porsche USA (or Porsche club USA ?) has produced a film about the built of the 356 in Zuffenhausen.
This film is called "made by hand". Directed by William Sholar (Founder and president of the Porsche Club of America) http://www.pca.org/AboutUs/PCAHistory.aspx
Filmed in 16mm format by Del Ankers http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=248216&paper=68&cat=104
Rodel Production (Washigton DC) that was Ankers' own production company.
This fim was produced around 1960 and can be watched on Youtube.

Posted by: julian914 Feb 23 2011, 08:34 AM

Thats a cool little video. Even if there's no factory footage. Thanks!

Posted by: johannes Mar 29 2011, 05:09 PM

Posted by: julian914 Mar 29 2011, 07:20 PM

Man I just think the old vids and pics are just cool.