please report your dead "friends", 914s that is ... Options

[SirAndy]

in an effort to fill up our ever growing database of 914s, i hereby ask you to please surrender any information about cars you have, had, drolled over, cut apart, burned to the ground, drove off a cliff or otherwise came in contact with (ewh (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon8.gif) ) ...

we need:

VIN # (windshield or pass-side fender-top)
Paint Codes (on plate @ front door-jamb)
Chassis Numbers (on plate @ headlight bucket)
Production Numbers (on sticker @ rear door-jamb)
Number stamped into the rear-trunk floor


please post here or email/pm me directly!

thank you very much,
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/pray.gif) Andy

[davep]

Anyone know what all these numbers mean?

Most of the numbers are pretty obvious, but the chassis number is a date code.
The VIN is the production line serial number and is the primary number by which the car is known.
The 914/4 chassis number is a body date code and is of the form: WWD9xYY
Here WW is the week of the year and D the day of assembly.
xYY is the sequence number during the day and x may be 0, 1, 5, 6
up to sometime late in calendar year 1974, September perhaps, a base code of 9500 was used to which was added the sequence number. If the sequence number was over 100, then you could have 96yy.
This style was followed by a base code of 9000, so you could have 91yy. It is very unlikely there were any 9100's since production was not very high after 1973. This change of code probably coincided with the dropping of the code from the Karmann badge and having a separate tag riveted in the front trunk. The data plate was moved from the right headlight support to the fuel tank bulkhead.

1849580 decodes as week 18, Thursday, 80th body built that day

463960 SLITS is missing the last digit from his chassis number, but 96 indicates a good production day

The fact that the chassis numbers and VIN's only roughly track each other indicates that bodies were assembled, painted and warehoused. Later, they were taken from the warehouse and put into final assembly where the VIN was assigned. Some bodies languished for months before final assembly. It is very interesting to analyse the data. So, keep the data coming.