I got the car with this awful trim on it. I would like to remove it as soon as possible.
Any suggestions for doing this painlessly?

This is the car at its PO's place before I got it:


This is how it currently sits:

not gonna be painless. They were mounted using rivets.

Ditto .................
I'd wait till you have to repaint it.

How they were mounted varies from dealership and car. Look on the inside of the rear fenderwell to see if there are rivets... Some were put on with adhesive - Either way may be painful, as the adhesive could pull paint off the car as well -

My mom had this put on my teener back in the day. Never been a huge fan of it, although it did help a lot when she drove it as her daily, and when I drove it back in high school and college. It doesn't look horrible on a black car. If only it were a bit lower profile, I might even leave it.

I don't know how painful they are to remove, but you don't paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa, and you don't add "door ding protectors" to a 914. It's gotta go - good luck!

I had a 1974 Mazda RX4 with the same trim. If it was mounted correctly there will be rivets holding the end tips in the aluminum channel molding. The Urethane insert comes out pretty easily but the Channel is usually riveted on both ends and then the long one will have it every 12" or so.

I also worked at a place for over a year selling this stuff. Installers used to buy this stuff in bulk and just drive around to dealerships installing them for maybe 20 to 50 a car depending on how much molding per car. Real easy to install as you only need a small drill, rivets, masking tape to hold in place and the insert.

Some of the rivets are making their way out.

Please excuse the dirty car...it is getting a full detail and then getting plasti-dipped blue until I get the whole thing painted.

For those that do not know much about plasti-dip, it is a temporary coating that can be peeled off like plastic, at any time. The benefit to the plasti-dip is that I can paint the car blue this weekend for around $120 and when I decide to do a full paint job in the near future, I can peel this stuff off and start prepping.

Didn't they use that stunt in Johny Dangerously? I think it was shelf paper though or wall paper?

Seen quite a bit of plastidiped cars, but not a 914!

Keep us posted!

If properly installed, I would just ignore it. This addition was very common back then. I think it looks just fine in a period correct sort of way. The trim appears to be straight & tight. Any rust near the rivets?

May be a dumb question...
wheels look sharp, what are they.

I think they are pedrini's

If I am not mistaken, they are SprintStars...not sure if that is a model of Pedrini's or not though. http://www.vollks.com.au/store/Sprintstar-8-SPOKE/

Empi SprintStars aka lemmerz SprintStars

the trim looks a heck of a lot better than door dings. If you have to park where dings occur, the trim is a smart thing. If you cant control who parks next to your car, the trim may not be a bad idea.

Its not a bad idea in theory, it just isn't as aesthetically pleasing as I would like it to be.

I have seen some of the rivets on the driver's door are starting pull out a bit. No rust around the rivets