My Porsche 914 story Options

[wwheelock]

OK, Here's my 914 story. I grew up 20 miles southwest of Bloomington, Indiana. I was about 10 when I became interested in racing, mainly the Indy 500. I would listen to the race on WIBC radio, and read every newspaper article and book I could find on racing.

Received a TYCO slot car set shortly thereafter for Christmas. Came with a 917 Porsche and a Ferrari 512. The TYCO cars were junk and I purchased a few AFX cars and received a few for gifts. Had an RC Cola 917-10 and a Blue and Orange 917. My dad purchased a subscription to Autoweek in May of 1973. There I read about the Can Am races with the mighty 917-10 and 917-30. Reading about the Porsches in Can Am made me aware of Porsche street cars. The 914 was the closest thing to a 917 in my mind as it was mid-engined, just like a REAL race car! Purchased a Revell 914 model kit. Believe it was a 914-6 and was molded in yellow.

No longer a kid, but now about 20 years old, I found a 1973 914 in a newspaper ad. It was rusty and the engine was not running. Owner thought it had dropped a valve. Purchased it for somewhere around $400-500. Complete car, but VERY rusty. Doors would not open and close properly as it was drooping that much from the rust. Being only a bit more than 20 years old, I just knew it would be easy to get this 914 going again! I picked up any magazine I could find with Porsche stuff in it. Found a Peterson book on Porsches that had a 914 with a Hoesman Fiberglass kit on it. Wow, it was cool! Scraped money together and purchased similar body panels for my rusty 914. Young with little money, I made very slow progress. Mainly bought stuff, but not much of it was coming together. Then I got a better job, so had a little more money. Found another 914, this time a 71. Paid around $2000 for it. It was running and had been repainted into a dark blue. It needed exhaust work. Had broken exhaust studs on the heads. But it was running. Took it to a shop that worked on Porsches and had that problem fixed. So I was driving it a bit. Had transmission problems, had something to do with not able to get into 1st or reverse, or getting stuck in 1st. Eventually paid the shop to replace the transmission. That bill was as much as I paid for the car! That experience drove it into my skull that I needed to learn how to fix my own stuff! The 71 was a lot of fun. With its skinny tires and no sway bars, you could hang the tail out on a twisty road and grin from ear to ear! I ended up trading the 914 in on a new 1984 Z28 Camaro. According to Car& Driver, the best handling American made car at the time! Wonder how much Chevy paid them to print that Bull$hit! The Z28 had a 305 V8 and a 5 speed manual. Lots of get up and go, but handled like a large sow, compared to my 914! Sure wish I had purchased a 944 instead. But the 944 was around $19,000 and the Z28 was under $15000 and I was a bit stretched on my budget with it. I traded the Z28 in less than 2 years for a 1986 Ford EXP 2 seater. It was a good car, that I kept for 17 years and put 246,000 miles on.

Back to the original 914. I eventually came to the conclusion that the rusty body was beyond my abilities to repair. I found a 73 914 body that had been dipped to remove all rust, along with lots of parts and a basket case 2.0 914 body in a Hemmings Motor News ad. Purchased that for around $2000 Got to work on rebuilding the 1.7 out of the original 73 that I first purchased. Got it going and was making great headway on the new dipped body. Then I got married, changed jobs and life brought the 914 to a complete halt.

I retired in 2022. Over the years I had moved the 914's 3 times. When I retired, the 914 had been sitting in my way for the past 32 years. It was good for storing crap in and on. Also great at ripping clothes any time I squeezed around the rear of it. There was a protruding piece for rear bumper attachment that inevitably would snag on new shirts and jeans! In November of 2023 I finally decided to finish this! Besides, for the last 30 years my wife had been saying "Why don't you get rid of that? You're never going to finish it". I had to prove her wrong!

In July 2025 the 914 saw the light of day for the first time since I purchased the dipped body in 1989. I finally have it finished. Today it has a hot 2.2 L type 4 engine and I Autocross it. The chidhood memories of Porsche makes me dream when driving the 914, I'm at the wheel of the 917-30!

[worn]

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A great story. Glad that you can get a 917 experience from a more modest piece of metal.