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.

[wonkipop]

i dug up a bit more for you @Dave_Darling from my files.

this is the other 6 that came in with the tangerine car.
came a similar way to aus dist. via another distributor in europe first.
was displayed in the melbourne motor show 1971 and was for a time kept in the showroom in south yarra on display. arrived lhd and stayed that way for a couple of years. was metallic red. disappeared off the face of the earth for 40 years.
its come back to life again and is in sydney.
(the tangerine car was originally a lot rawer in terms of its interior when compared to the lhd car here at the same time even though rhd).
from 71 until later in 74 these were the only two 914s in aus.
the two crayfords cars arrived in 74. both were 914 2.0s and had nothing to do with the distributor. both private imports those ones.




porsche australia set the rumour mill in confusion a while back when they posted this on their facebook. described the same car as metallic blue.



turned out some media type in porsche australia got the original b/w photo "updated" with colorization. photoshop jockey got it way wrong. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

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but to give you some idea of the mad stuff alan hamilton used to get hold of and have stashed during his heyday.


there is this. paris auto show. 74 i think. or whenever it was.



alan hamilton got hold of the paris car. exact car. from porsche.
had the RSR motor fitted to it by porsche when they finally made the engine and not a wood fake of it in the back. shipped it out. raced it i believe. lhd.
and then when he was finished with it, sold it off locally.

it looked like this for a while. note vic numberplates. thats melbourne.



some guy in the states has got it now.



the guy it was sold to after hamo finished with it racing was a mate of brian clerihan (who had the tangerine 6).
he converted the paris car to right hand drive. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
no one knew the fark what any of these cars were. they were just cars.


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hamo had other stuff. i was led to believe there was a 917 turbo can am car stashed in the shed at the farm when i went out with brian when he picked up the 6. might have been b c bullsh$ting. we were only allowed so far up the yard and told to go no further. the farm manager went the rest of the way and bought the 6 out. verbotten to see what was stacked up out there.

i still remember driving back with the car. we went out in bc's brown targa. which was a (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) an american market big bumper converted to rhd. and i drove the targa back behind brian. after about 40 miles on the hume highway he pulled into a rest stop.
i pulled up behind. b c walked back to me. i remember what he said. "its a farken 4 speed. come and have a look". when we got it back to his place we spent about 4 hours looking all over and drank a few 6 packs to assist. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) we noticed the weird side wart light lenses then as i had the USA warts on my car. we didn't know what they were back then. i think b c got hold of brian johnsons book at some stage and we figured out they were J lenses.

the big mistake brian made was he didn't realise what he had at the beginning. he thought the conversion was a distributor workshop job done here. only much much later after he had "rectified" the handbrake and installed the 73 interior did it come to light that this one very likely was not done in melbourne. too late.

..

the other bit of key information was that alan hamilton spent almost the entire year in 1968 working at the porsche factory in germany. his father norman sent him there.
part of his apprenticeship before he took over the business.
1968 is the year they were putting all the early prototype 914s together and finishing off the cars. so alan would have had a very close behind the scenes look at the whole project. he knew what to get and how to get if from the factory.

i've got to hook up with the owners of the tangerine 6 again. stick a camera underneath it and take some photos for you. a lot of the interior is intact. b c never touched the dashboard or the pedal box area.