OEM Black Door Handles Options

[pfreiburger]

I am now quite certain that the factory did install some black door handles. I came to this determination in a roundabout (and expensive) way, starting when my inner hammer mechanic escaped and broke the driver door handle.

As no black ones exist, I picked up a new chrome (Sierra Madre) handle and was surprised to find that my old lock cylinder (after removing the black paint) would not fit the chrome handle. The length was fine, but it fit so tight it could not be turned. At all. Measuring the ID of the handle bores confirmed that the black handle was larger, even with paint on it. The used chrome-handle lock cylinder I bought on line later fit and turned in the new chrome handle just fine. And that used chrome handle cylinder definitely had more clearance when inserted in the old black handle. Measuring the cap ends of the lock cylinder confirmed it – the cylinder from the black handle was larger in diameter.

Dissimilar sized handle components are almost certainly no customizer job, and damn sure no hot rod job. The only conclusion I can draw is that Porsche had a supplier make a run of black handles, and for whatever reason some components were made a little different. This fits with what I found when I scraped some black paint from the broken handle: no evidence of chrome ever being applied to the casting. Lastly, there are factory pictures (albeit poor ones) of black A pillar cars that look like they have black handles also.

Am I missing another explanation?

[wonkipop]

the cars were defintely styled completely inside porsches design studio.
(924 in the same space probably 2 years later).

1866 noted on these images refers to the klie styled prototype above.
porsche project no. 1866.
one of the original proposals was for a mid engined car and was proceeded with.
another was for a front engined rear transaxle variant that was not initially proceeded with. later in the wake of the mid engine project collapse, the front engine/rear transaxle layout was taken up again in the 924 and 928. all the seeds were there already in 1967 - both for the failed project headed by F. Piech and the subsequent plan B project that produced the mid 70s water cooled non rear engined porsches. Porsche was hostile to developing a front wheel drive front engined car for VW.