VWP 914 #1 - Collection of the VW museum Options

[wonkipop]

it has been mentioned in a number of topics on this site that these may be images of the same car.

to left present condition of car - to right a possible image of it in an earlier original state.


a speculation perhaps triggered by the present condition of the tangerine orange car with self evidently incorrect rims appearing to belong to the 74 model year instead of original 70 model year rims. leading to some suggestions that the car has been "freshened up" either significantly or in a minor degree along the way and that the image to right is therefor its original state.

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recently i stumbled across this much higher resolution image of the car to the right.
this reveals details that make it clear the two cars are not the same car.




see notes on image. its very clear that the more red-(ish) car is either a prototype car, one of the 8 known to have been built in 1968 or a pre-production car prior to the full production run.
the big giveaway is the jacking point in the rocker panel. it is situated low down near the underside not near the top as production cars had. images of surviving prototype cars share this position of the jack point lower down. refer the piech 914/8 which made use of a 1968 prototype body as its basis.

some other details become clear as well. the lack of interior trim panels on the targa bar. both side and top trims are missing. probably not yet hand made as a part and not fitted to this very early prototype car. unlike the very early base model 4s it does not have horn grilles painted body color to match the body colored bumpers. in addition the plastic headlight surrounds are body color when the production cars had white surrounds.
the sail panel trims are chrome even though the sail panel is body colored (no vinyl).

the very same car gets used for very early publicity shots for brochures at the time of the cars launch.




its not this car.



they are not both necessarily the same color "red" cars. the prototype car could be a deeper red. there is no mistaking the #1 production line car as tangerine. photo colors are not necessarily reliable.

the #1 car exhibits all the features consistent with an early year production cbase model 4. body colored bumpers with matching painted horn grilles. body colored sail panel trims. who knows what color headlight surrounds are as i can find no image anywhere with the headlights up. but i will bet they are white. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)





this image taken from projected images that were part of the 50 year exhibition of the 914 at the porsche museum could be the tangerine #1 car in its original state before the fitment of update 74 VW sport rims. although it appears to have a radio aerial and i can't detect one on the recently taken images of the tangerine #1 car. whatever, it once would have had the VW embossed hubcaps.



as an aside the sport rims fitted to VW #1 are not in fact correct. they are the deeper offset 5.5 rims that were fitted to VW beetles. the 914 sport rim had a noticeably different offset from the 4.5 and 5.5 rims fitted to the beetle at that time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

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you can never say for sure - but there is a good chance that the red car, sometimes associated with the #1 VW museum car, is maybe one of the two red prototypes amongst the 8 being constructed, visible in this photo of the karmann factory taken in 1968.
(the photo can be dated from the front bumpers on the production line karmann ghias).
but who knows. it could also be in between the prototypes and the full production cars.
whatever it was it was evidently available for use in taking very early publicity photos likely in advance of delivery of any production cars.




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i think there were definitely a series of pre production cars that existed before the production line start up. this was definitely the case for at least a few of the cars at the frankfurt motor show launch.



there is no karmann plate in the door reveal! ? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)
i suspect these are press release cars and were never sold to the public.
they may have not had a vin number or chassis identification number that is part of the production sequence. these launch cars also differed from the production cars. fully carpeted front trunks. no seam between the front fender and cowl. they also appeared to lack the central vent in the top of the dashboard that early 4s had.