Early ’71 914 — wipers, wipers parked on the passenger side. Normal? Options

[Pierre68]

Hey folks,
My ’71 914/4 1.7 (Italian Autogerma market) has the wipers parked on the passenger side. Car has had at least 7 owners over 55 years but is well preserved — nothing else suggests anyone ever messed with it.
Was this ever a thing on early 914s? Factory variation, dealer prep, Autogerma habit? Or almost certainly a previous owner mod?
Period photos or primary sources welcome. Thanks
Pierre

[wonkipop]

i only have ever seen one such car.
but its not a factory/production line feature.
one of two 914/6s brought into australia by the distributor as assessment cars in 1971.
converted to rhd in the distributor's workshop and then sold.
the distributor carried out a wiper mod as part of the conversion.
car came to australia as llhd production car originally.
still survives.

at melbourne motor show on the stand still lhd.



after conversion by aus distributor to rhd. (recent restoration after many years off the road and thought to have been lost).



the second of the assessment 914/6 cars is perhaps even more interesting.
there is strong suggestion that this car arrived in aus via japan back in 71/72 already in rhd form. it is sthought that the factory did the conversion on a production lhd car in the factory/race workshop. they did not mod the wipers but left them in original form.
car still survives. car was originally built on production line as japanese spec. ie lhd but with right hand drive light set up for dipping and beam direction with side indicator lenses rather than side marker lights.




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i have seen one other 914 with the wiper mod. belongs to a guy another friend of ours knows and he dropped by with it at our workshop a year ago. he modded the wipers.
not sure how exactly the mod is done - i should ask him. he did the work converting the car to rhd and 914/6 GT update. it was originally a 1972 US market 914/4,




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typically the hand full of 914s that were converted to rhd in the UK back in the 70s when the cars were new did not have the wiper mod. wipers were left in lhd configuration.



every 914 i have seen in aus that was converted to rhd left the wipers alone apart from that original red 6 i posted above and more recently that silver GT.
there would have been none from the factory built that way as all 914s were originally only built in LHD format. no production rhd cars.

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911s and 912s are a different story. they were built lhd and rhd.
cars for UK/Aus/Japan/South Africa/Hong Kong/Singapore were rhd 911s.

this is a typical factory RHD 911. Aus delivery. wipers were handed to the rhs and parked in front of driver.



but there are known production line exceptions.
my mate has a 1976 911 S built in late 75 that was delivered new to Aus with a LHD wiper set up. wipers parked ion left side of screen. its a rhd car. he has owned iit since new. one owner. definitely never modded.
general explanation. 911s were built in stuttgart at porsche. they ran out of rhd wiper parts when the car was going down the "line" (if you call the production line a line which it really was not at that time, nore like a garage hand building cars) - so they fitted it with a left hand drive wiper set up - all they had on the shelf? there are other stories of other cars here that have similar inconsistencies from new. not necessarily the wipers - but also other parts.

however this would not have been the case with a 914 as none of them were ever built in any other form but llhd. the factory did not have rhd parts on the shelf. the anomalies you sometimes see in 911s are because rhd parts were available - which was never the case for 914s originally.