buying a 914 Options

[scabo7]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif) i'm falling in love with these cars and presently shopping for a 2.0. i've got my eye on a 1975 (no engine rebuild) but looks great with around 50k miles. what kind of work can i expect to do on it? (no rust) how can i obtain a vehichle history report to research history for accidents etc? should i spend over 5k for original one in great shape or restored? what should i look for? help!

[lapuwali]

As is common, there's an exponential effect on pricing for cars that are concours-quality or nearly so. $18K is WAY above market price for 99% of the 914s out there. $5K is top dollar for a driver, IMHO (i.e., a car you're not afraid to drive every day and park at the supermarket). Above that, you're getting into weekend-only garage queens. By the time you get to $10K, the car would have to be in extremely nice condition (recent top-quality repaint with everything off the car), but doesn't have to be original. Above $10K, originality is everything. By $15K, it had better be able to win a concours with nothing more than a light rubdown.

From my own watching of the Bay Area market, you shouldn't have to put another $5K into a $5K car, unless you're trying for a show winner, in which case you should have bought a $10K car to start with, or you're looking for something that can't easily be bought turn-key (like a big-engined toy). Perhaps my view is skewed by the plethora of cars on the Bay Area market, but the original poster is here, too.

As for broken heaters, there is no "heater" besides that noisy thing behind the seats. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) The red lever between the seats opens a pair of flapper boxes that redirects air around the exhaust into the cabin. If it doesn't, then the cables have parted or the flapper boxes have been removed. Perhaps the car has headers on it with no provision for heating. There is an electric fan in the engine bay that pushes air through these, but they do break (30 year old electric motors frequently do). There's also a fresh-air motor in the box at the base of the windscreen, subject to the same aging problems. I get enough hot air in the cabin with the engine fan alone for usual Bay Area temps. Indeed, even in mid-winter I can't usually leave the heater lever open all the way w/o the cabin becoming too stuffy.