914 stories Options

[ClayPerrine]

Years ago, my six conversion was just a /4 with fuchs, a 2.0 and Dellorttos. I was driving back home from Waco and the throttle cable broke. I didn't have a spare. So I took the speaker wires off the speakers, and cobbled together a "throttle cable". I took the top off, and stowed it, then I tied the wire to the crossbar linkage, ran it up through the engine grill, across the targa bar, and down to my right foot, where I tied it to the front lace on my shoe. I was able to put my foot down where the accellerator was laying on the floor and the engine would rev. I could use the brake and clutch, and the wire didn't interfere with shifting. So I jumped on the highway and headed home.

About 15 minutes into the 2 hour drive home, it starts to rain. Hard. Complete with lightning and thunder. By maintaining my speed around 70, I was not getting wet, only a little damp. A Texas Ranger pulls up next to me, and she sees me driving with the top off in the pouring rain. She shows down and pulls in behind me and hits the lights. I slow down and stop under the next bridge.

As she is walking up next to the car, I realize that I can't get out of the car because the wire is tied to my shoe. She walks up and asks for my license and insurance. I give her them, and she asks me to get out of the car.

I open the door and turn sideways. She watches as I untie the wire from my shoe. She asks why I am tied to the car. I explain the whole broken throttle cable thing, and she laughs and tells me that is ingenious. Then she says that I already had enough of a bad day and lets me go.

I got wetter getting back up to speed than I did the rest of the drive home. Took me weeks to get the water out of the car.

[Manny Alban]

Glad I'm not the only one. Years ago, when I had my 1981 924, my throttle cable broke. I was 20 miles from home. I took off my shoe laces, tied them together and then to the throttle linkage. Ran the shoelaces from the hood and out to my wide window. Drove home with a hand throttle. Had to replaces the laces since I stretched them out pretty good on the ride home.

[mbseto]

A Texas Ranger pulls up next to me,...

Those Feat'll Steer Ya Wrong Sometimes

[Sway Bar]

2011 I think, had a 1975 2.0 with FI. Did something to it (tune up) so my kid and I took it for a drive. Sun was out, top was off, nice day.

Couple miles from home the throttle cable broke.

Opened the engine lid, leaned over the back and operated the throttle while my kid drove us home.

I would yell "shift!" and close the throttle, then open it again while he changed gears. We didn't kill the 914 once and were amazingly smooth. His only complaint was "Dad, slow down a bit!"

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)

Haaa mine was something similar...throttle cable broke on a bridge except the girlfriend at the time didn't know how to drive standard. She was the one to lean over the rear in a short dress no less. Man did I get the waves and honks. Got us off of the bridge, she was less than impressed but a good sport. Cost me a nice dinner but she was keen to learn standard after that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif)

[poorsche914]

Winter of '83 I travelled back home to Illinois to visit my parents. A cold snap hit with below freezing temps for over a week. Finally, the sun came out and it was a balmy 30-ish degrees. My sister and I were going somewhere (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) when I suggested we take the roof off since it felt so warm out. She looked at me like I was crazy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

As workers were leaving from the Caterpillar plant in East Peoria, we were stopped at a red light. A block down I spotted a 914 going through the intersection. As it passed, the driver waved with outstretched arm... straight up. He had his roof off (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy11.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)

[914forme]

I was working on a customers car, he found a 76 that he liked the look of it with GT flares, and rubber bumpers. I got all the body work done, and take him to my paint supplier for the base and clear. He flips through the paint book at Porsche colors and finds a black he likes with gold metallic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) But okay, tell the guy I need a gallon to shoot the car, and matching clear. He looks at us and says, that gallon costs over $1000. To which I say, what does it have real gold in it. And he looks at me and says yes, matter of fact it does. 24K gold flakes. The customer does not bat an eye and says okay.

I get it out and spray a test blank, and he comes over and looks at it. Says he does not like it, and wants it painted in black with silver metallic. So I had a gallon of paint worth $1K sitting on the shelf. After about a year, I finally had a trailer I needed to paint, and I thought hey I have a nice gallon of paint. And painted that livestock trailer with gold flake. Once fancy looking blinged out livestock trailer. You would have thought the cows would have noticed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/screwy.gif)

[Coondog]

Cruising Balboa with my buddy in the late 70s. Picked up two girls that liked my car, one cute, one ugly. Took them back to my place, woke up with the cute one and my buddy never tried with the ugly one. We still laugh about that, wasn’t the first time a 914 got me laid...... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/first.gif)

[StarBear]

My second story: New from VA to NJ in 1974 and driving on snow. Going downhill and lost traction. With the car's great middle Center of Momentum, spun slowly about 359 degrees; didn't even veer out of my lane. Took the next double jughandle U-turn, headed home and got a ride with my neighbor. A surreal "and what's happening to me?" for 10-15 seconds!

[bbrock]

Oh my! So many stories, which one to tell? I'll go with this one. My first 914 was a real beater 70 bought when I was 19 that I had already wrecked once and had cobbled back together by a body shop. The following winter I was searching in vain for some HEET to pour in the tank so the damn car would start in the sub zero weather when I hit a patch of black ice on illegal bald tires and slid right into a fire hydrant. I had no money to pay a shop for another repair so picked up a front clip at the salvage yard and decided I would weld it in myself. Mind you, I had no welding experience but had my brother's ox-acetytene torch and a can-do attitude. I spent several weekends with the car occupying my parent's garage while my girlfriend, and now wife of 35 years shuttled me back and forth from college in her old Honda Civic.

Finally, I had the front end stitched back together and the somewhat wrinkled hood back on. I don't remember how the welds looked but they had to be horrendous. Anyway, late on a Sunday I hop in the car with my girlfriend following for the 60 mile trip back to college. About 3/4 of a mile after entering the Interstate, the front left corner dropped to the pavement with a shower of sparks rooster tailing behind. I immediately though my expert welding job had failed and the car had broken in half until I saw an EMPI mag go careening down the highway in front of me. Yep, in my excitement of finishing the project, I neglected to tighten the lug bolts. I managed to steer the car to the shoulder on the ball joint nut and Elizabeth pulled over behind. Surprisingly, a stranger in a van also pulled over. I assumed my wheel had hit the van. Then I learned he had run into Elizabeth's car and my next assumption was that he hit her trying to avoid my wheel or the spark fountain of my car. Nope, turns out it was total coincidence. He hadn't even noticed the fireworks in front of him and had simply changed lanes without looking at the exact moment Elizabeth thought she was witnessing the fiery death of her fiancee. The poor Trooper who worked the claim kept scratching his head and commenting that the forms weren't designed for such a scenario.

As for the car, I retrieved the wheel, bolted it back on with some spare lug bolts and we were on our way. Lesson learned. Tighten those bolts!

[thomasotten]

I traded in my 74 VW Beetle when I was in high school for my 914. It had a "turbo tail" on it, like this example:

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/www.pelicanparts.com-1349-1582085528.1.jpg)

Whale tails were all the rage back then. Anyway, there were some really trashy neighbors living in the rent house next door to us. They used to drink all hours of the night. The neighbor's 15 year old son was sort of friendly with me when I owned the VW, but got jealous of me having a Porsche. Our relationship also soured because it got back to him that I said something not too flattering about their family. Anyway, one night, I awoke in the middle of the night to a fire engine putting out flames on my 914. The kid (at least I suspect it was him) doused my 914's turbo tail with gasoline and set it on fire. What the? Yeah, just the tail was set ablaze. I went outside in my underwear, and soon learned there were women firefighters.... yeah, it's not bad enough that your car gets set on fire, but you have to be embarrassed in front of women in your fruit of the loom underwear.

Was it a jealous neightbor, or did Wotan strike my car ablaze on account of bad taste? Either way, I tried running a duck tail, then a turbo tail again, but realized, they just don't look good with spoilers on their butts. So I learned a hard lesson that night. 1) Don't piss off your neighbors, and 2) Don't run ugly spoilers on your 914.

[Maltese Falcon]

...always a good story on tap when wearing this Tee to a 914 get together (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Mikey914]

It was a dark and stormy night and some friends and I were going home from a party. I was alone in my car. They were speeding of course and so was I. The had left a few minutes before I did and I was quickly catching up.

We used to use a logging road that went across town with a bridge. We used to drive this as you could easily drive around the gate and it was in good condition.

It was railing and I was going a little fast. As I was catching up to my friends at a high rate of speed, I say the tail lights tun to the right. I quickly realized that I was further down the road than I realized. I tried to slow and make the turn but rain had created some puddles and I lost traction and went into a spin. I spun at least 6 times, but I was no longer in control.

I wound up in a ditch tat about a 45 degree angle with the nose pointed up. The motor has stopped. I know I had just wrecked my pristine black 73 2.0l. I was sick to my stomach. My friends came running back to the car as they had seen the "headlights, tail lights, headlights, tail lights action and was sure something bad had happened.

They took me home.

The next day we all went back to check out the scene of the accident. For some reason my car was on the inside of the corner not the outside as you would thing inertia would have taken it. It was then that we realized there was a big oak tree just past the apex of the corner. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/pray.gif) I Call it divine intervention but I was somehow spared from my own stupidity.

The icing on the cake- the 5 of us lifted the car out of the ditch and I only had a ding on the right rear quarter panel that a local body shop was able to able to pop out for $50.

[gandalf_025]

Quick one off the top of my head..
I worked in Boston in the 1970’s and
got to invited to a girls apartment after work.
It was a less than stellar neighborhood,
but I figured nobody would know what my car was
around there. I parked on the street in front of an
Apartment building and felt OK about it until I noticed
3 guys sitting on the front steps looking at my car.
But it wasn’t till one of them said.....”Nice 6” that I got
VERY concerned.. I cut my visit short and the car was
still there when I got back...
That ended my ( nobody will know what it is) innocence..

[Skid]

Ok, I'll play. I was driving my 73 1.7 to my engineering internship early one morning before sunrise. I had just entered a construction area on the freeway where the barriers narrowed and there were no shoulders or pull out opportunities. At exactly this moment and without any warning, my engine sputtered and died. I coasted to a stop hoping there would be an emergency pullout or something but had no luck. I was stopped in my lane on the freeway with nowhere to go and rush hour was just starting to pick up. I tried turning on my hazards but realized that I hadn't gotten them working yet (bad time to figure that out). I watched in my rear view mirror as several cars swerved around my now dead and dark 914. I waited for a break in traffic and hopped out of my car to see if I could figure out what had happened. I popped the engine lid and ran to the side with the battery. In the darkness I fumbled around with the battery cables until I found an ignition wire that had somehow broken off the main battery terminal. I remember having to use my teeth to bite the old connector off the wire and then quickly reattach it to the main cable. Meanwhile more and more cars are flying by and swerving around me... Anyway, I was able to get back in the car and she fired up and got me the rest of the way to work. That was certainly a memorable morning.

[RARE 6]

In less enlightened times, Spring of 1972, walked up to the registration table at the old Phoenix International Raceway for our first PCA DE event. Told the folks behind the table I wanted to register both of us in the 914-6 we'd bought brand new on 9/14/71.
"Your going to let your wife drive your car?" an alarmed male registrar asked.
"Hard to keep her out of it, " I replied. "She's making half the payment and drives it to work everyday."
A few years later she became the first female instructor for Rocky Mountain PCA. A few years after that, everyone in the pits at Woody Creek was cheering as she pulled in after finally beating my time.
The three of us are growing old together. The -6 may be in the best shape of the group.

[Ace Le Count]

BUMP maybe we'll get some more...

[Ace Le Count]

Bump

[Ace Le Count]

Whoever is reading this, we would love to hear your porsche stories!

[john77]

The most recent one happened in October. I had to drive my car out to my friends shop to fit GT flares, but I'd already sold my 16x7 fuchs to buy wider wheels and they wouldn't fit under the narrow fenders.

So I figure, screw it, I'll chop the arches, fit the wider wheels, drive out really early, and cross my fingers I don't cross paths with a stickler cop.

As I get on the 60 heading out of LA this kid in a slammed Infiniti G35 comes racing up behind me and, well, yeah, I may have been forced to floor it and leave him in my dust, which for some odd reason he sees as a challenge and floors it after me...

My exhaust is pretty loud, and he had a fart can, so it's like a really angry wasp screaming after a throaty chainsaw, at which point we pass a cop who'd pulled someone over. Only I guess he'd just finished, because about 2 mins later I see him appear in my rearview.

I must have seen him before the G35 because I let off first, the cop pulls alongside me and stares at my Mad Max style 914, and then promptly pulls over the kid in the slammed G35.

[Ace Le Count]

The most recent one happened in October. I had to drive my car out to my friends shop to fit GT flares, but I'd already sold my 16x7 fuchs to buy wider wheels and they wouldn't fit under the narrow fenders.

So I figure, screw it, I'll chop the arches, fit the wider wheels, drive out really early, and cross my fingers I don't cross paths with a stickler cop.

As I get on the 60 heading out of LA this kid in a slammed Infiniti G35 comes racing up behind me and, well, yeah, I may have been forced to floor it and leave him in my dust, which for some odd reason he sees as a challenge and floors it after...

My exhaust is pretty loud, and he had a fart can, so it's like a really angry wasp screaming after throaty chainsaw, at which point we pass a cop who'd pulled someone over. Only I guess he'd just finished, because about 2 mins later I see him appear in my rearview.

I must have seen him before the G35 because I let off first, the cop pulls alongside me and stares at my Mad Max style 914, and then promptly pulls over the kid in the slammed G35.

Awesome story, thanks for sharing!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)