Thoroughbred & Classic Cars Article on 914s, In the March Issue Options

[motorvated]

Great British classic car magazine that usually is very detailed and accurate with their write-ups. March issue has a piece where they drive a 1.7 and a 2.0 liter four, and they talk about the six. Since the 914 never was sold in right hand drive, not many made it into Great Britain, so their research and reporting seems a little thin. I'm sure the savvy World crew can find fault with the cars tested and some of the information in the article, but it's still an interesting read. Barnes & Noble carries the magazine, at least the ones in Denver do.

[Tom_T]

Actually, the UK importer (name escapes me now) did do some really clean RHD 914 conversion for the UK, & the 914-2.0 was sold as the 914SC there. There was another group downunder doing the RHDs for OZ & NZ in that Brit Commonwealth market.

You can google for RHD 914s etc. & they'll come up. IIRC there's an older thread on here too about them.

VW/Porsche & Karmann did make provisions in the 914 des9gn for RHD, so the conversions were easier.

maybe some of our UK, OZ & Kiwi members will chime in here to add to the RHD story.

Cheers! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)
Tom
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[porschefile2010]

Actually, the UK importer (name escapes me now) did do some really clean RHD 914 conversion for the UK, & the 914-2.0 was sold as the 914SC there. There was another group downunder doing the RHDs for OZ & NZ in that Brit Commonwealth market.


maybe some of our UK, OZ & Kiwi members will chime in here to add to the RHD story.

Cheers! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)
Tom
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Hi Tom and Motorvated
I am not sure that there was any organised conversion going on in the day. If you wanted a 914 you just imported it and if you wanted it to be RHD you went to a hopefully reputable engineer to do the job and get the work certified. And it is different in Oz compared to NZ I believe. In Oz you just couldn't have LHD so everything that went into Oz was converted.
In NZ there has been more latitude especially as cars have aged and there is no problem getting a registration for LHD but subject to a pretty strict Vin process which checks for everything from brakes to rust. If there is rust there is no vin and in some cases where guys have brought in US cars unseen they have ended up in the knackers yard and not on the road!

All the best

Richard
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[phillstek]

The two cars that were officially imported into Australia were for market evaluation. They were converted to RHD in England by Crayfords prior to arriving here. The cost of doing the conversion and the high value of the DM combined to make the 914 way to expensive for the local market.

Only one of the cars was returned to Germany and no-one knows what happened to the one that stayed here.

It is now far easier to register a LHD car here as the rules changed some years ago. Here in NSW you can register any pre ’89 import.

[Middlefour]

There are various numbers quoted for cars that were converted by Crayfords, the most common number is 11, but as far as I know there are no hard facts to back that up. Some cars went to Hong Kong apparently as it was not, at that time, possible to own a left hand drive car. There is certainly at least one genuine Crayford in the UK.