31 years, time flies Options

[wonkipop]

1989
parked outside of frank lloyd wright's johnson wax hq in racine wisconsin.
might have been one of my first biggish drives in it.
think i was pretty stoked that day. 29 - grin from ear to ear.



2020
some place upside down. feeling a lot older. but still grinning.



i've tried to look after this car.


been pottering about in some boxes over christmas.
found some stuff.
stickers from swiss and italian 914 registry.
these must date from mid 90s when we started up 914 aus registry.
all three or four of us.
we swapped them our stickers for theirs.
wonder if these two mobs in switzerland and italy are still going strong?



still got one of the orig 914 register stickers on the car.
the sticker was designed by B C, founder of the club.
he was a graphic designer. did a nice job.
he passed away about 10 years back.



found a delivery docket for the car in amongst the documents.
forgot i had this.
car came from capitol porsche/audi in washington.
(wasn't a swamp then that had to be drained? or maybe it was).




and a photo i had dating from back in 1992.
the whimpering 1,8 fresh back from chicago parked next to a crayfords 73 2.0 belonging to BC who founded the register.
would have been the first time two 914s were parked side by side in aus since the days when the distributor had two sixes parked next to each other in 1971.

[bahnzai]

Wow, what a great history and caretaker. The car looks even better now.
So, you have shipped the car back and forth from the States?
I love the Club decals, especially the Australian one!
Thanks for sharing.

[wonkipop]

no mate.

shipped the car from usa to aus 29 years ago.
it just went across the pacific once. (and the atlantic back in 74).

its not better than it was then,
just a trick of the brittle aus light (2 x texan sun).
the factory paint is holding up...........just. from 10 feet away.

[mb911]

My dad actually worked at sc Johnson waxdale during the 80's and drove his 914 , 912, 924 turbo, and 356 over the years. Very cool. I probably saw your car at some point. My family's car dealership was down the road at that time

[wonkipop]

you might have.
but i was in chicago going to UIC on a fulbright.
i ducked up to racine to check out the wright building.
hammered up the expressway.
i was not living in racine.

though i did do a trip out to frank's taliesen east home office once and the lads out there still running his office had some nice cars. i particularly remember a corvair monza belonging to one of the guys. a very clean and very hopped up monza.

i just noticed in photo that the passenger sunvisor is off.
it always fell off.
still does, but now it falls in my lap on the drivers side.

chicago is a great part of the world.
i have good memories and the car to remind me.

the car originally came from washington and the original owners moved with it to madison wis. where i bought it from them.

[PanelBilly]

The car looks cleaner now

[MM1]

Good stuff - thanks for sharing.

[JeffBowlsby]

Mr. Wonkipop...by chance are you an architect or trained as one? Your architectural references above suggest your interest in that.

[phillstek]

Great story and really good to hear from another long time Australian owner. Coming up for 33 years of ownership of mine this year. Bought it in LA in 88 for 1500.

I don’t think people realise how rare these cars are here.

[wonkipop]

Mr. Wonkipop...by chance are you an architect or trained as one? Your architectural references above suggest your interest in that.

could be mr. b. but my hand lettering is not as neat as yours - refer your electrical diagrams.

---

@ panel billy - can assure - not as clean as in 89.
time takes a toll. it survived impulses to restore/take out small dents and dings. for about 15-16 years i left it alone - had other things to attend to. its never driven as well as now.


found photos from a brighter day in chicago when the sun was actually shining.
better idea of its state back then.
phoenix red was still "liquid" on the top surfaces.
only like that on sides and inners now.
look close - theres some sp57s.
don't think they were original tyres, but could have been?
possibly reshod with a set when sp57s were last available?
spare was original/unused.

there were a lot of rusty beater 14s around back then cruising chi-town and taking hell from the climate. the summer only cars were the ones to find.
did not mean they were rust free. no such thing. but weren't composed of rust as the main ingredient.

if you look close at the side on shot you can see a dirty big touch up scar on the rear fender right above the wheel. thats still there. one of the things that attracted me to the car. it was honest, warts, door dings and all. had not been mucked around with. even in 89 many of the cars were repaints by that point in time.
first wave of "restorations".
still got that touch up bottle of paint, it was in the glovebox. original owner left it there.

[wonkipop]

Great story and really good to hear from another long time Australian owner. Coming up for 33 years of ownership of mine this year. Bought it in LA in 88 for 1500.

I don’t think people realise how rare these cars are here.

good on you phil for keeping it.

you are right, they are rare here. lhd drive restrictions kept numbers down for a long time. you had to get off your arse and go get one from the USA like you did. that took balls back then. a few blokes did it. wonder how many of them have still got their cars like you have. i'm trying to remember them all.

[ClayPerrine]

Did you do a RHD conversion on it? If so, I would love to see some pictures.

About 10 years ago, I got offered a job in Brisbane. Betty and I really considered it, but I had to turn it down. Her father was in poor health and living in Florida. A trip from Brisbane to Orlando was a 23+ hour ordeal, not including layovers. So I turned it down. They were going to pack everything we owned, including cars, and ship it to Oz. That would have been a rude awakening when they got to the 914 spare parts. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I was really leery about LHD cars on RHD roads. But it would have been really neat to live there.

Clay

[wonkipop]

Did you do a RHD conversion on it? If so, I would love to see some pictures.

About 10 years ago, I got offered a job in Brisbane. Betty and I really considered it, but I had to turn it down. Her father was in poor health and living in Florida. A trip from Brisbane to Orlando was a 23+ hour ordeal, not including layovers. So I turned it down. They were going to pack everything we owned, including cars, and ship it to Oz. That would have been a rude awakening when they got to the 914 spare parts. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I was really leery about LHD cars on RHD roads. But it would have been really neat to live there.

Clay

i did convert to rhd.
so did phillstek who commented here.
did not have a lot of choice back then.

you could get used to driving lhd.
just need to be careful in traffic around unpredictable drivers.

process to convert wasn't much different to the crayfords method documented elsewhere fairly well on websites/literature. (thats how we all knew it was possible, + there were two crayfords cars around melbourne in the 80s, the green one and a white one, so you could see how it was done). photos - i thought i had some somewhere but can't find them yet. all pre digital camera days. you did not photograph things like people do now.

driving it (and driving here) is all just back to front.
no big deal after 1/2 an hour behind the wheel.
only thing you have to get used to is driving upside down.




ps think what people are noticing when they say its cleaner now - is the stance?
and as i say, filmed in australian sunlight, which i can tell you is definitely different to american spec sunlight. its way more brighter down here.

back in 89 it was still arse down, nose up, us sales lot spec stance.
several versions on that i have heard.
deliberately set up for understeer for average us drivers? (a bit unkind of porsche if true/or still scared of ralph nadar).
nose set high for collision bumper regs? (more believable i think).
euro cars seemed to be set level in old photos you see.
we took a bit of time setting it up right this time around with new shocks etc and full suspension rebuild. have it sitting dead level. the arse is sitting up right now on new bilsteins. the springs are still original but reset right on the struts. nose has been dropped a little.
i see some folks seem to set their cars up slightly nose down, esp the 6 guys.

[wonkipop]

ps the one thing i will confess to tearing out of the car and throwing away.
(it aint in a box).
the seat belt interlock system.
it was still in this car in 89.
what a pain in the a.
you couldn't put a bag on the passenger seat without doing up that seat belt or it would not start. + it had some hot relay problem under the passenger seat that was part of the system and would cause no start situations at random times.
it all came out in 91/92 and was thrown away in a bin with the lid slammed down.

re rhd.
i think the best rhd cars would be the GT40s and 917s set up for Le Mans.
you get the best of both worlds then with the shifter on the sill.
its much better shifting across the body like you do left hand drive.
left foot clutch. right hand shifter.
the whole left of body side for shifting when rhd is in my humble opinion inferior.
i should be defending uk standards shouldn't i, but why would i do that, l'm old school and thats pom rubbish. at least the swedes had the sense to swap over to lhd.
which leaves us stranded with the japanese going about it all wrong.

[phillstek]

Great story and really good to hear from another long time Australian owner. Coming up for 33 years of ownership of mine this year. Bought it in LA in 88 for 1500.

I don’t think people realise how rare these cars are here.

good on you phil for keeping it.

you are right, they are rare here. lhd drive restrictions kept numbers down for a long time. you had to get off your arse and go get one from the USA like you did. that took balls back then. a few blokes did it. wonder how many of them have still got their cars like you have. i'm trying to remember them all.

Don’t know if it took balls but yeah, it was a process for sure. All I knew was that I had get one after years of reading out of date copies of Excellence and VW & Porsche magazines in the early 80s. The clincher was an article in Excellence about a red ‘GT’ owned by Steve Gaglione (?). I drooled over the pictures and read the article over and over again.

Having owned air cooled VWs pretty much exclusively since being able to drive the 914 was a logical progression into something interesting yet sort of simple. Sold my ‘64 Baja to fund the trip to LA and found a ‘72 with a carbed 1.7 and shipped it here.

As soon as it landed the 1.7 came out and a 2.7 went in along with the rhd and 5 lug conversion. When I thought it would pass the road worthy test I took it the Registration office where the inspectors, who had no idea what it was, proceeded to check a few items and asked me to show them where the engine was.

I filled in the paperwork and said nothing about the rhd and six conversion. To my astonishment they called my name and handed me the plates and rego papers. That’s how it started for me.

It’s been a journey owning this car for this long.

[ClayPerrine]

After 34 years of 914 ownership, I found that that adding forward rake to the car (nose lower than the tail) makes it more stable at highway speeds. It also looks better, at least in my opinion.

And OZ is on our bucket list for places to visit. I so want to drive mount panorama, even in a rental car. But, knowing my wife and her driving ability, I will probably be in the passenger seat for it.

Clay

[ConeDodger]

These days if you tried to bring a car in to Aus you’d have to prove it contained no asbestos. The process is expensive. I follow the Mighty Car Mods guys on YouTube and their adventures with importing look pretty intimidating to be sure...

[wonkipop]

After 34 years of 914 ownership, I found that that adding forward rake to the car (nose lower than the tail) makes it more stable at highway speeds. It also looks better, at least in my opinion.

And OZ is on our bucket list for places to visit. I so want to drive mount panorama, even in a rental car. But, knowing my wife and her driving ability, I will probably be in the passenger seat for it.

Clay

yes - mount panorama circuit is well - incredible.

if you can - go to the bathurst 12 hour endurance race in late jan/feb.
though its not likely to be going on this year with co-vid.

i think its a better race than the better known v8 supercar race in october, which now with the end of production of fords and holdens in australia really is over in a sense?
but that is just an opinion.

to date the crowds at the 12 hour have been smaller and more manageable than the traditional race and better behaved (ie the crowd on top of the mountain).
on top of the mountain is where you want to be.

i went in 17 and 18. nothing prepares you for a GT international series car coming over skyline and down into the esses leading into the dipper at full tilt. i could not believe they can get through there at the speeds they sustain. the first of the essess has a curb they all just touch and bounce off if they hit it right and after leaving it you can see the downforce smash the cars back down just in time for the next curve.
the final of those tight essess in that series is the dipper. its a skatepark contour not a corner. (the sight of those big bentley coupes doing it is especially improbable).
occasionally someone does not get it right. not so good then.

do i sound overexcited. sorry. its just that its up there with tracks like Spa or the N ring. the spectator positioning on the top of the mountain section of track is second to none. you are standing on the edge of a cutting directly above the cars some 15 to 20 feet below.

after the 17 race i walked the track back up from forrest elbow to skyline. its twice as steep as it looks on film.

the drive through the blue mountains to get there from sydney is a fine piece of the planet as a bonus. you can drive that at proper speed. the bathurst track has a regulated 60k (35mph) speed limit all the way around and a cop sits there with a radar camera 24/7 from what i hear. they probably even have unmanned speed cameras these days. australia - home of the speed camera.

one of my colleagues here in melbourne is the daughter of the former owner of Wyong Motors. they were the entrants who won the 1968 Bathurst 500 with the infamous devil's # Monaro. #13. the driver was bruce mcphee. it was around that time the famous ford v holden rivalry started. the car is long gone that won it. race cars were nothing special in those days. after the race it had the stickers removed and it was sold to a customer and put back on the road as just a regular car. there is a replica of it in the museum at bathurst. the original car disappeared a long time ago.

----
thanks for the tip on forward rake.
i'll see how mine goes when i get it out on the highway at proper speed.
been a bit restricted down here due to insanity of worlds longest lockdown.
hope to get out soon. things still a bit wobbly in this town.

[wonkipop]

Great story and really good to hear from another long time Australian owner. Coming up for 33 years of ownership of mine this year. Bought it in LA in 88 for 1500.

I don’t think people realise how rare these cars are here.

good on you phil for keeping it.

you are right, they are rare here. lhd drive restrictions kept numbers down for a long time. you had to get off your arse and go get one from the USA like you did. that took balls back then. a few blokes did it. wonder how many of them have still got their cars like you have. i'm trying to remember them all.

Don’t know if it took balls but yeah, it was a process for sure. All I knew was that I had get one after years of reading out of date copies of Excellence and VW & Porsche magazines in the early 80s. The clincher was an article in Excellence about a red ‘GT’ owned by Steve Gaglione (?). I drooled over the pictures and read the article over and over again.

Having owned air cooled VWs pretty much exclusively since being able to drive the 914 was a logical progression into something interesting yet sort of simple. Sold my ‘64 Baja to fund the trip to LA and found a ‘72 with a carbed 1.7 and shipped it here.

As soon as it landed the 1.7 came out and a 2.7 went in along with the rhd and 5 lug conversion. When I thought it would pass the road worthy test I took it the Registration office where the inspectors, who had no idea what it was, proceeded to check a few items and asked me to show them where the engine was.

I filled in the paperwork and said nothing about the rhd and six conversion. To my astonishment they called my name and handed me the plates and rego papers. That’s how it started for me.

It’s been a journey owning this car for this long.

my story is pretty much the same as yours mate.
first car was my mothers 64 beetle.
progressed to a 72 type 3 squareback from there. i bought that car in 82.
it took me everywhere. i have photos sitting out in the sturt desert at camerons corner when there was nothing out there and nobody went there. just desert.
i drove it out on to the salt lake at lake eyre. went everywhere. even places 4 wheel drives found it hard to go.
the 914 was to me the ultimate air cooled vw.
top of the pile.



i could afford vws. i could not afford porsches.

i did not have quite as easy a run putting mine on the road.
took a couple of goes.
there was a lot of debate over the lighting set up.
i did not put euro indicators on but kept the full amber usa front indicators.
we wired the parker lights into the pop ups.
that sent the bureaucrats into a frenzy.
eventually it was decided that because the pop ups had manual winders on them the solution would be accepted as it had a fail safe if the lights did not raise for any reason.
they also knew what the car was.
i suspect there had been one or two through before me in those years which might have set off alarm bells with work that could have been less than desirable. who knows.
i recall the inspector coming out and saying, oh another one of these hey.

[wonkipop]

These days if you tried to bring a car in to Aus you’d have to prove it contained no asbestos. The process is expensive. I follow the Mighty Car Mods guys on YouTube and their adventures with importing look pretty intimidating to be sure...

yep, they will make you tear the clutch out if you can't prove its a new non - asbestos one. and they will charge you for dealing with it all as a hazardous material. its gone mad. you are at the mercy of the bureaucrats.

it was not like that when i bought the 914 in. fortunately. we just pulled the original clutch out of it. one of those rubber core clutches. museum piece. and fully asbestos loaded. i could be wrong, but i suspect the brake pads which i still have not needed to change are asbestos. but i am not poking my nose into that ants nest just yet.