QUOTE(naro914 @ Aug 31 2015, 02:06 PM)
I've just spent (wasted??) that last hour+ reading through all 15 pages of this thread...
The biggest thing that upsets me is: how did I miss that car when it was on eBay for $15000??? I have always wanted a historically significant 914 race car, but they have always been way out of my league price wise....If I would have known about this car, I would have bought it instantly and restored it to its racing glory for vintage racing.
Adam, what you see as 'old and tired', vintage racers see as 'history and exciting'. What you say was 'obsolete in racing' is certainly not in the vintage world...
You keep saying you're making it a Porsche, but are you? To me, and to many, it's a kit car just like all the VW based kit cars - a fiberglass body on a VW chassis. The body is NOT made by Porsche, you're going to have to hack the chassis smaller (good luck with that btw). So no, it's not a Porsche any more than Beck's cars are Porsche's. I had a Beck 550 Spyder with a Porsche engine, Porsche transmission and Porsche suspension components in it...and guess what? It was still a kit car...
Some very smart people here have posted some of the engineering hurdles you are going to face - most of which are going to be VERY expensive and VERY tricky to overcome. It is really worth it just to say you were able to make a 904 out of a 914?
You bought the car, you obviously have every right to do what you want. It just saddens me to see a true piece of Porsche racing history - and something I always wanted to own - cut up to build a kit car.
Good luck with your build.
I don't know how you missed it, the car has been for sale off and on since 2007, on Pelican, ebay, everywhere. It sold in 2011, and that guy never drove it, not once. He then tried to sell it on ebay forever, there were no takers except me.
As far as something being a kit car or not, if a car is on a Porsche chassis, and retains a Porsche VIN, it's a Porsche. Everytime something like this comes up I bring up 550-0001, when it was found in Guadalahara, a friend of mine was sent down to appraise it before it was auctioned off on the floor of the Shoe Factory where it was found. His client bought the car for about $400,000, bailed halfway through the restoration, and the Collier people took the baton and spend who knows how much restoring the car, but if you look at the restoration photos on my blog, very little of that car was ever touched by Porsche. In fact, my friend that went down there confided to me that there was enough original pieces on that car that he could have fit them all into his suitcase to fly home. Yet, 550-0001 is shown all around the world and I doubt anyone is walking up to it at the Collier Collection and saying it is anything other than the 1st Spyder, though my guess would be 15% of it is original.
So me re-bodying a 914 into a dream car it is still a Porsche. In fact I skinned the fiberglass body off the car when I got it, so putting a new skin on really doesn't change much. Not everyone will agree with me, but then I had plenty of nay-sayers when I first starting cutting on Da Spoodster, plenty of people said I should have welded a roof back on and made it back into a 58 A Coupe, except it was my car, my dream, and I had buyers begging me for the car before it was even finished.
Here are pics of 550-0001 on my blog:
<https://unobtaniuminc.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/porsche-550-01-spyder-the-prototype-giant-killer/>
https://unobtaniuminc.wordpress.com/2011/09...e-giant-killer/