Our best estimate of how many USA 914s survive in 2007, Save the 914! Options

[JeffBowlsby]

Here are the only data points we have:

1. The 1977 HO recall which only applied to USA 914s and which was issued a year after production ceased, indicates that approximately 83,000 914s (only including 914/4s) were imported to the USA.

Sidebar: If ~115,000 914/4s were produced then approximately 32,000 went to other non-USA markets. So the USA received about 2/3s of total production.

2. Marketing literature indicates 1000 1974 914 LE cars were built for the USA market for the 1974 model year. Today, 33 years after the LE cars were produced, approximately 200 surviving LE cars are on the registry. We continue to find more LE cars regularly even after 25 years of searching and recordkeeping, and its the only control group of 914s where records are available. Presumably all were imported to the USA, because they were USA market cars. So for discussion, if we assume that 250 LE cars remain, thats a 25% survival rate. BTW, most of those known surviving LE cars are drivable and not parts cars.

So from that info:

A. How many 914s can be estimated to remain now in 2007?

B. At the calculated 'attrition rate', how many 914s might statistically still be with us in 5, 10, 20 years?

I know that assumptions will need to be made and an exact number of survivors will probably never be known, all I am interested in is an educated guess based on the info we have. Please post the projection and supporting math if its easy to comprehend.

[Pat Garvey]

Here are the only data points we have:

1. The 1977 HO recall which only applied to USA 914s and which was issued a year after production ceased, indicates that approximately 83,000 914s (only including 914/4s) were imported to the USA.

Sidebar: If ~115,000 914/4s were produced then approximately 32,000 went to other non-USA markets. So the USA received about 2/3s of total production.

2. Marketing literature indicates 1000 1974 914 LE cars were built for the USA market for the 1974 model year. Today, 33 years after the LE cars were produced, approximately 200 surviving LE cars are on the registry. We continue to find more LE cars regularly even after 25 years of searching and recordkeeping, and its the only control group of 914s where records are available. Presumably all were imported to the USA, because they were USA market cars. So for discussion, if we assume that 250 LE cars remain, thats a 25% survival rate. BTW, most of those known surviving LE cars are drivable and not parts cars.

So from that info:

A. How many 914s can be estimated to remain now in 2007?

B. At the calculated 'attrition rate', how many 914s might statistically still be with us in 5, 10, 20 years?

I know that assumptions will need to be made and an exact number of survivors will probably never be known, all I am interested in is an educated guess based on the info we have. Please post the projection and supporting math if its easy to comprehend.

Hmmm! Might be fun to play with this.

I'll give it a shot.

Pat

[smontanaro]

So for discussion, if we assume that 250 LE cars remain, thats a 25% survival rate. BTW, most of those known surviving LE cars are drivable and not parts cars.

I would think that since LEs were special that they might have been taken better care of in general and thus have a slightly higher survival rate than the rest of the production run (at least /4s - the same argument might apply to /6s - they were special so got taken better care of).

Skip

[davep]

George says he is mailing out 33,000 copies of the AA catalog. I am astounded at that. If he could only get each one to send back the VIN's of each of their cars that would be a tremendous resource.

[Bleyseng]

my guess is 50% of George's mailing list don't have cars anymore so total 914's is around 15,000.

[TeenerTim]

my guess is 50% of George's mailing list don't have cars anymore so total 914's is around 15,000.

I don't where you came up with the 50% number but there is a very high percentage of people that own more than one 914.

Let's say only 25% of the 33,000 don't have cars. That's 24,750 that do. Now let's say that only 10% of that number have 2 cars. That's 2,475 for an estimated total of 27,225.

Now the 27,225 number doesn't include people that aren't hooked into the whole 914 community. That number alone is 1/3 of the 83,000.

[davep]

I'm with Tim on that one. I'm sure that George does not want to waste his money sending out a catalog to someone that no longer owns a 914. Each one probably costs a few dollars with postage.

I'm sure that a significant percentage own more than one 914. I have not completed my data entry yet, so cannot provide actual numbers, but I was surprised at the number of VIN's associated with member names.

I would have guessed that less than half the owners would be on the AA list. If it was possible on the next catalog, I'd like to see a link to 914World website, and an encouragement to list the VIN of every possessed 914. That would help vendors know the potential market size. I think it could be a synergistic relationship.

[TeenerTim]

Although not very accurate, you could work backwards by counting the number of cars we have cut up, wrecked, or trashed. My second 914 was built from one good car and one that had broken in half. If I count the half-car, I have owned 4 914s. That gives me an attrition rate of 25%.

I would estimate the low side of remaining cars is not less than 25% and the high side is probably not higher than 50%. Somewhere between 30% and 40% is probably close.

[Richard Casto]

I'm with Tim on that one. I'm sure that George does not want to waste his money sending out a catalog to someone that no longer owns a 914. Each one probably costs a few dollars with postage.

Whats the old saying about advertising?... Half of your money is wasted. Problem is you don't know which half!

[Pat Garvey]

I read somewhere that the attrition rate for domestic cars is 12% for the first decade. Since the 914 was built for "6" years of its first decade, I'd lower that percentage to 10%, meaning 74,700 914's survived until 1980. I preface this by reminding people that early cars had fire problems & were burdened by being a "cheap Porsche", which means that many were abused & trashed. That's why I give an aggregate attrition rate of 10% for the first decade.

For the second decade, I'd bet the attrition rate zoomed to an additional 20%, leaving 59,760 at the end of 1989. Why? The cars were trashed even moreso because they were even cheaper & got into the hands of high schoolers. Plus, the rust issue was really rearing it's head during this decade. I believe many were crushed/parted in the mid-to-late part of the 80's. I know one guy who owned at least a dozen during that period and all but one of them were parted & crushed.

The third decade, leading up to 2000, I believe was even worse. I'd put the attrition rate at 25%! Too many were too far gone on the East coast & in the midwest - they bought the farm. I do know of two cars that were built from spliced bodies, but they are also long gone. My guess is that there were about 45,000 actual roadworthy, semi-roadworthy, in-restoration, or parts beast when 2000 hit.

I think George's catalog numbers (and I assume those are 914 catalogues) are probably not too far off. If the 25% number for the last decade holds up, and you pro-rate it for this decade, that would mean there should be about 37,000 of these beasts surviving in one form or another.

However, other than the first statistic, all other attrition rates came from my upper and/or lower intestine.

Whattya think?

Pat

[GWN7]

This has sort of come up in other threads before...........the facts that were discussed before are 75% of Porsches production is sold in the USA, this makes the 83,000 recalled number fairly accurate (and of the 75% production that is sold here, 75% is sold in California). 75% 0f 115,000 is 86,250.

I suggested in the other thread that one person from each state write their DMV and ask how many are registered in each state. I did that here and there were 20 cars registered and insured in Manitoba. Of the 20 I could account for eight of the 20. That is I had met or seen six of the other owners cars (two of the ones listed were mine). That left 12 other cars that I have never seen.

When the other thread came up I did projections based on populations (X amount of people = X amount of cars sold) and came up with a figure using the Manitoba data (if I remember correctly) of 45,000 cars left. + or - !0%

As to the 33,000 figure from AA, I have 8 cars (that is I have 5 cars that will see the road again or are on the road and 3 parts cars) and I'm not on his mailing list, nor do I want to be. So I think using that figure is low.

[Bleyseng]

my guess is 50% of George's mailing list don't have cars anymore so total 914's is around 15,000.

I don't where you came up with the 50% number but there is a very high percentage of people that own more than one 914.

Let's say only 25% of the 33,000 don't have cars. That's 24,750 that do. Now let's say that only 10% of that number have 2 cars. That's 2,475 for an estimated total of 27,225.

Now the 27,225 number doesn't include people that aren't hooked into the whole 914 community. That number alone is 1/3 of the 83,000.

I am still on American Iron catalogs that follow me around wherever I have moved. I built a 390 Ford engine in 1990 I haven't order crap since then!!!! Once you are on a list its hard to get off it as its advertising like a shotgun blast-coverage! 50% waste...

I still believe there aren't more than 20,000 cars left, I don't count the rotted parts cars thou...they need to be able to be driven

[JeffBowlsby]

Based on the data available to us, 25% of 914 LE cars survive today in 2007. I think this number is on the high side in terms of an overall survival rate for all 914s because the LEs were made near the end of the production, the earlier cars have been on the road longer and their survival rate should be lower. The LEs may have also received better care because of their rarity, so their survival rate may be marginally higher than the overall survival rate but lets use 25% as a base line and consider the balance as a contingency.

I am not a statistician but, if 25% of all 914s imported to the USA survive today, then 25% of 83,000 = 21,000 surviving cars in 2007 as an approximate maximum.

This also means that 83,000-21,000=62,000 USA cars have been destroyed through 2007.

34 years have passed since the midpoint 1973 model year of 914 production.

62,000 cars/34 years = 1,800 cars per year have been destroyed as the average attrition rate over the last 34 years.

1,800 cars per year/62,000 total cars destroyed = 2.94% per year average attrition rate

At the 2.94% attrition rate, 600 cars are currently destroyed each year. So at this attrition rate, here are the projected quantities of surviving 914s for the near future:

Today 2007 = 21,000 cars
5 yrs 2012 = 18,000 cars
10 yrs 2017 = 16,000 cars

Garrold, I checked with California DMV and they do not release vehicle registration data without a court order, so meaningful information is not available to us here.

Save the 914!

[1970 Neun vierzehn]

Jeff,
I had checked within the last year with the Ohio BMV about vehicle registrations, referencing my position with a new car dealership with regards to titling, licensing and registering cars. The office personel that I spoke with in Columbus, Ohio HQ indicates that the only information that would be kept for auto registrations would be the manufacturers name, i.e. PORSCHE. The Ohio BMW does not have vehicle information on Porsche by model type (356, 914, 944, 911, etc.)

On a personel note, when I electronically report a sold unit (to the Ohio BMV) with regard to my job, all I report to them is the manufacturers name (i.e. Honda), vehicle type (i.e. 4 dr sdn) & VIN (no input on whether the car is a Civic, Accord, Sable, 328i, etc.).

Paul

[davep]

could they provide a printout by VIN, that would surely nail it, and provide bonus info as well.

[1970 Neun vierzehn]

could they provide a printout by VIN, that would surely nail it, and provide bonus info as well.

That's a thought! I'll try to go down that road with them.

[GWN7]

Here the same people who issue the insurance, issue the registrations and titles. So it was easy for them to search their data base and come up with the numbers. BC and SK should be able to provide the same infromation as their insurance companys are the same models.

When I asked, it took two phone calls to two different people to explain what I wanted and I then faxed a letter with my request to the persons office. A letter arrived about a week later with the list of cars by year and vin.

As for states that only record the vin numbers, the vin itself would tell there DMV what model it is.

A state issues the licence plates, so there has to be a data base somewhere that matches the car to the plate. You don't go in and ask for licence plates without having to tell them what type of car it's going to be put on.

In Canada we have CPIC which allows anyone to search a vin or licence plate to see if a car is stolen. The same data base might contain all the cars that are registered in Canada and possibly the USA. It's just a matter of being able to extract the data in the right manner and finding the right person to extract that data.

[orange914]

what exactly is an l.e.? or in otherwords what do they consist of, is there a way of looking into the vin to determine?

mike

[JeffBowlsby]

Hey Kenny,

Check the link in my signature...(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[davep]

what exactly is an l.e.? or in otherwords what do they consist of, is there a way of looking into the vin to determine?

mike

http://members.rennlist.com/914_canam/
In a nutshell, it was a 1974 914 2.0 with VIN above 4742914300 approximately with alloy wheels (usually Mahles painted to match the accent color) in either black or light ivory with an accent color of sunflower yellow on the black or phoenix red on the ivory (bumpers, front spoiler, rear valence, rocker panels and usually a negative stripe). Proof is a COA showing the correct M option.