best guess on how many 914's are still on the road, Doing an alblum of the rebuild Options

[NJTom]

Ok I'm doing an album on my 1972 project, a before during and after. I'm working on getting a reproduction window sticker, have scores of pictures and would like to add some history. I have numbers of 914 produced by years and was wondering if anyone had any idea on how many are still on the road? No right or wrong answer here, I did find a thread from 2008 and the range was from 2400-12,000.. I think this would be interesting reading at local car shows and the like. THANKS and enjoy!

[SirAndy]

Our own VIN database is still growing, albeit at a slow pace.

I suspect that 25% for the /4 cars is much closer to the truth.

I have spoken in length with the people at EASY, Parts Heaven and HPH and the consensus is that they combined have probably cut up well over 3000 /4 cars over the years.

That's 3000+ cars for just 3 dismantlers here in CA.
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[mrgreenjeans]

Our own VIN database is still growing, albeit at a slow pace.

I suspect that 25% for the /4 cars is much closer to the truth.

I have spoken in length with the people at EASY, Parts Heaven and HPH and the consensus is that they combined have probably cut up well over 3000 /4 cars over the years.

That's 3000+ cars for just 3 dismantlers here in CA.
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And other than accident casualties, Cal. climate kills far fewer teeners than the rest of the U.S. Did those in Cal. die from mechanical death and accidents ? Because they sure seemed to have a better chance of longer life than say those in the rust belt.

By the mid 90s when I finally located my 2.0 litre, the cars in some parts of this country were already disappearing due to severe rust issues. NOT from mechanical fatigue.

I had gone from the upper Midwest, westward and southward to look at cars that I thought perhaps had potential. By far, the abundance of offerings were west and south and I must have looked at well over 100 cars before finding the rust free, dry example I did. It had originally sold new in Mt. and lived most of it's life in the dry, unsalted weather there.

Point being:

23 years ago, I looked at an unreal number of cars which were broken in the middle. The longs were eaten up, chassis was sagging, and holes in the body and jack points common. Hell hole rust was in 90 % of the for sale 914s I looked at. Where did those cars go ? I am guessing they were cut up for parts. I know some were beyond hope for saving. Rotten floor pans, rotten trunk pans, and holes behind the passenger seat. ALL. DAY. LONG.

So, what is available today is even far less than 23 years ago. I can count the number of great cars I know of from Parade or local car shows in the dozens. Not hundreds. I can count the number of cars I know of that have been lost locally and scrapped out in the dozens OVER the ones I know of which have been saved.

I believe from my own observations, Andy's closer to the mark with that 25 percent figure than the mentioned earlier 50 percent figure.

Just my 2 cents from a perspective from a Porsche enthusiast owner since '84 and a 914 owner since '94.

"rust never sleeps". And am convinced, most of our's were born with it.....