How many 914s remain in California?, The BAR database is illuminating... Options

[JeffBowlsby]

The California Bureau of Automotive Repair – our friendly emissions laws enforcers – have an online database which indicates past smog check history on vehicles within the state…searchable by VIN number or license plate number. In California, an emissions test and smog certificate are required to register a vehicle for use on public roads. Regarding 914s, the 1970-74 cars are now exempt from testing, and the ’75 cars will be exempt in January 2004.

I am interested in the 1974 LE cars in particular, so the database should be very current, they only became exempt in January 2003. I sequentially entered individual VINs covering the known VIN range of the LE cars – VINs 4742914000 through 4742917000 (about 2.7% of all 914s ever produced) and got back some interesting results. Any statisticians in the house? I realize this is a small sample compared to the total population of 914s produced, so what degree of error might there be with these extrapolations?

Of the 3000 VINs I checked, 262 (8.7%) had a smog cert history:

144 cars (4.8%) had valid smog certificates on December 31, 2002, the last date they were required to have smog certificates in this state. This means that only these 4.8% of the 914s produced within that VIN range, were legally allowed to operate on California roads on December 31, 2002.

An additional 118 cars (3.9%) had recent smog certificate history, where I define ‘recent’ to mean that these cars had previously received a smog cert or had attempted to get a smog cert and failed, at various dates between 1996 and 2002, but the smog cert had expired and was not in effect on December 31, 2002. These cars would not be allowed to operate on California roads on January 1, 2003 or after, without first getting new registration, but as of that date they became exempt from emissions testing, so registration for these cars would now be possible if they were still roadworthy. The BAR online records go back as far as August 1996, which includes the last seven years history.

The database also lists the location where the last emissions test occurred. Surprisingly (or maybe not), the surviving 914s within this VIN range are about evenly distributed between Northern and Southern California based on the BAR records. 120 cars (46%) had smog cert history listed from Northern California cities, and 142 cars (54%) from Southern California cities.

Conclusions

If these percentages for California cars hold true for all 4 cylinder 914s made from 1970-76, using 115,000 total 914/4 cars produced, this smog certificate database suggests that on or about January 1, 2003:

1. 4.8% of all 914s made (~5,520 cars) may have been registered and operational in California on January 1, 2003. This would require them to be essentially in stock form, with working stock fuel injection and an engine in good enough condition to pass an emissions test.

2. Potentially as many as an additional 3.9% of all 914s made (another~4,485 cars) may also exist and become registered and operational in California, when all model years of the 914 cars become exempt from smog certificate requirements (January 1, 2005). These cars include all the 914s that had emissions testing history as far back as 1996 as potential candidates for registration now that they are smog-cert exempt.

3. So California itself may have between a minimum of about 6,000 to a maximum of 10,000 914s surviving, licensed, registered and on the road. And our goal for the June ’04 West Coast Classic is only 100 914s, where are all the other 914s hiding? Its probably reasonable to assume that the total number is more realistically around 7,000 or 8,000 surviving, drivable-condition cars statewide, the rest are basically parts cars. Note also that this data indicates that about half of all 914s in California are stock FI cars, which doesn’t make sense from personal experience. Stock FI cars are the exception, the majority of 914s we see have been modified in some way, making the modified cars technically unregisterable in California if they were ever to be inspected.

4. How many of these California cars ARE NOW on the LE Registry? There are 14 known LE cars located in California at present, but only 11 have any sort of smog cert history, so 3 of those 14 cars have fallen off the BAR database. I only know the VINs and last smog test location of about half of these LE cars, but have no current owner information on several of them. Can anyone run the VINS or license plates for me and get owner info? (legally?)

5. How many of these California cars within the known LE VIN range COULD POTENTIALLY BE on the LE Registry? There are 187 cars with smog cert history in California, within the VIN range of known LE cars, some of which may be LE cars. Note that there are many cars on the LE Registry that their current whereabouts are not known…there are most certainly more LE cars in California as well as in other states.

6. The data suggests that both NorCal and SoCal regions might have as many as 5,000 cars each, but remember that only about half of the surviving cars may be drivable.

The caveats

The 914/6 cars are not included in this study because they use a different VIN sequence and they have been smog cert exempt in California for many years.

This database of course can offer no insight to the number of 1974 (and earlier) model year cars that are track-only, registered non-op, cars shipped out of state or parts cars that have simply fallen out of the BAR database. So the 500 cars at Rich Bontempis house are not included in these ‘survivor’ numbers. They are donors. 8^)

Its possible that if a non-op car was in pretty good shape but couldn’t or didn’t pass a smog check before January 1, 2003, that they may have come alive again after the smog cert requirement was dropped and are now registered and back on the street.

I extrapolated these percentages on a limited sample of total VINs and applied them across all years 914s produced with the assumption that the percentage of surviving cars would be relatively consistent across all model years. That’s a big assumption. However there are not likely to be as many early (1970-72) or late (1975-76) cars around (because fewer were made than the 1973-74 cars). So the percentage of 73-74 cars surviving as reflected in the BAR data, may be somewhat greater than the overall percentage of all surviving 914 cars across all model years. This may tend to make the maximum number of 10,000 surviving 914s in California optimistic.

Obviously, not all of these cars are in California or even exist anymore…some have been shipped out of state, parts cars, ‘converted to off-road use only’, or otherwise destroyed…

To think about: So how do we define what a ‘surviving’ 914 is? Is a surviving 914 only a licensed, registered, drivable car? Is a tub roller or an incomplete parts car considered a surviving 914 in its current condition? How about a bunch of boxes of parts necessary to assemble a 914? Then of course there is Brads tube car…looks like a 914 but isn’t…let the philosophers speak up…