SOT: When did the hood badge change? Options

[bbrock]

This might get some knickers in a quibbley but I'm trying to figure out had the 914 design team's vote to badge the car been honored, which badge would have come on my car. Porsche Classics shows the orange badge used through MY 1973 and the red badge beginning in MY 1974, but there is also this graphic showing the switched occurred sometime in '73.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/images.summitmedia-digital.com-20845-1664031721.1.jpg)

The best I can tell, the switch might have happened with the introduction of the 911 G-series in MY 1974 but I've had a hard time finding when actual production began. I did find this article saying it started in August, 1973 which might be a good clue.

That may be all I need to know, but does anyone have anything to add?

[bbrock]

corporate jockeying is probably the wrong word however to describe what ensued.
we forget the context?

There might be a better term but I was speaking specifically about jockeying over branding. As far as Lotz was concerned, there was no verbal agreement. As far as he was concerned, VW had paid Porsche to develop a car and they owned outright, including the right to use the Porsche name as they saw fit. Porsche really wanted to have a version fitted with a Porsche engine and sold as Porsche. I haven't seen any indication that Porsche ever considered the 914 a lesser model other than doing what was needed to protect the 911 as flagship. I think there was genuine excitement over what had been created, especially among the racing arm. The damnatio memoriae in Porsche and VW seems to have followed the confusion over the car's DNA due to branding and the ridicule that generated.

Lotz didn't like the idea of selling the same body under two different brands. He even looked into developing a 6 cylinder version of the 411 engine but it didn't pencil out. Instead, Lotz sold bodies back to Porsche to fit the 911 engine. Ferry Porsche himself wrote that Lotz told him the he saw three options: 1. VW would take over Porsche. 2. The companies would separate completely. 3. Create some kind of joint venture. Obviously the third option one and the joint VW-Porsche-Audi US import and marketing entity was born. Lotz also thought a sports car would sell better if the Porsche name were attached. I suspect the VW-Porsche branding was his idea since it was a compromise between keeping VW ownership of the model and boosting sales with the Porsche name. I'm guessing it wasn't too hard to sell him on just calling it Porsche in North America since it would boost sales that were always going to be rather paltry from a VW perspective despite being huge from Porsche's.

What really blows my mind about the whole badge debate is the 914 was designed as a partnership between VW and Porsche, but they used a LOT of Porsche parts.

The original 924 was designed by Porsche as an Audi sports car originally. And all of the car was a VW parts bin special. Super beetle front and rear suspension. Audi Fox motor. Audi transmission. All of the little interior bits. My first "Porsche" was a 924. And other than the hood badge, I don't remember a single part on it that had a Porsche part number (but I could be wrong).


There is more Porsche DNA in a 914 then there ever was in a 924. But the 914 is called a NARP and doesn't get a hood badge. The 924 is called a Porsche and gets a hood badge.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) I think this comparison is a very interesting study on the power of a badge. I remember when the 924 came out, there were eyebrows raised over a front engine water pumper Porsche, but it was mostly chalked up to Porsche's innovation and keeping up with the times. As a high school kid with a new drivers license and dream of owning a 914 when I could save the money, I would swing through the Porsche dealer lot after hours to stare at the 924s and dream. They cost more than we paid for our first house so completely beyond reality, but still brought joy. My first long in the tooth 914 would come to me a year or two later. Only then would I learn of the curious identity crisis that the 914 suffered. In fact, I think the night I rolled my sunflower yellow and primer colored 914 up to the college dorm to show off was the first time I heard, "you know that's not a real Porsche..." More curious that the 924 with far less Porsche DNA somehow escaped the same fate. It had to be that badge.