Crayford rhd 914, Genuine car? Options

[pep1]

Hi - JD Classics in the UK have for sale a rhd 914 that they say is a genuine Crayford conversion. Registration number is NRX 538K. The car started life in the US and then was exported to Australia (doesn't say when) where the conversion was done. JD say that it is one of only 9 cars that were converted by Crayford. From the research I have managed to do it sounds like this cannot be true. I have asked for some proof of their claim but they have gone quiet. Could this car however have been converted under licence using genuine Crayford parts or is it more likely to be a conversion just done by some garage in Australia as I understand quite a few cars were converted there in this way.

[KSCarrera]

If it was actually converted in Australia, it can't be a Crayford conversion. It also has an ashtray, a feature missing from Crayford RHD dashboards...

[wonkipop]

If it was actually converted in Australia, it can't be a Crayford conversion. It also has an ashtray, a feature missing from Crayford RHD dashboards...

spot on.

crayfords parked it on the tunnel.
where they also parked the radio.
no room on the left hand side for the depth of a standard radio back then in the space left between dash and bulkhead.

also the glove box is just big enough to put a pair of sunglasses in for the same reason! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

the give way on all crayfords cars is the hand stitched dash over the fibreglass mould.
vinyl skinning was a high end industrial process back then that only the manufacturers had access to. the crayfords dash was pretty good but it still looked hand made.

another give away is that crayfords did not fill in the left hand side hand brake sill panel.
you ended up with two sill panels depressions, one on each side.

and one more was they mirrored the instrument binnacle dial layout.
this was something porsche never did on its other right hand drive models.
a right hand drive 911 has the same binnacle layout as the left hand drive.
it is not mirrored. it is simply transposed.
most of the 914s converted in aus later in the 90s follow porsche practice.

and if you look behind the pedal board a crayfords car doesn't use a 911 right hand drive pedal cluster. it uses the original 914 pedal cluster and they modified it. they cut and welded the brake arm and used a welded section that shifted the allignment of the brake pedal right across to be near the accelerator. they fitted only the straight clutch arm rod piece from the 911 cluster. they did this for a reason and it wasn't being cheap.
a 911 rhd pedal cluster does not in fact work so well on a 914 which is a much wider car than the 911. with a 911 cluster you really do sit very diagonally to work the pedals.
its one thing crayfords got really right. i copied it on my car exactly.
most of the aus converted 914s use a rhd 911 pedal cluster. it made it easy but it also made it not quite so good. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)