Progress is happening. Dropped the race car off at the shop today to swap out the gearboxes. I even had some fun with the center seat parts car!

Hopefully the body will be done by June and then the cutting begins.

The body is almost done, can't wait!

I'm looking forward to your build on this- I fell in love with this design by accident years ago. I was living in Maryland for my last 2 years in high school and some of my friends lived in apartments nearby. Someone there owned what I would now consider a Signal Orange (but faded) 904 that I would drool over daily. One night as I was headed home on my bike, I stopped by the car and not seeing anyone around I climbed inside... instead of the sumptuous interiors I'd seen in magazines of Thomassina Ferraris I was greeted with not much more than thinly padded fiberglass buckets, exposed shift mechanisms and no interior door panels, just pull wires for door handles and sliding windows. The sparseness of the car initially turned me off and I never tried my sneaky midnight encounters again, but now looking back I see the wisdom of the design. I still regret never hearing it run but we can't have all our dreams come true...

The body finally arrived, getting it was a nightmare with customs issues and having to be handled by no less than 4 different shippers, but it arrived and is safe and sound at Unobtanium HQ. It felt a little like X-mass morning.

The center seat 914 already gave up it's gearbox for the build and will now be cut to ribbons to test fit the body. My thinking is I would rather make all the wrong cuts on the right body, so when it comes time to fit the body on the yellow 914/6 I have worked out all the kinks. A trial run of sorts. I feel a little bad slicing up the 914, but it was so butchered already I figured no-one would ever bring it back, so rather than scrap it at least it's death will help the cause. The old saying of Porsche restoring holds true, some die so others can live.

Look for weekly updates, it's very exciting.

It's a tight squeeze, and I'm not a big guy, 5'10' and 190 lbs.

Enjoying this one great reading, thats an interesting concept and a sound one @ that,has this been done before ? it makes sense to me.
So you prune back the 914 and bond it to the 904 main front compartment moulding,engine lid pivots somewhere from the rear...is that the basic picture?

Yes, the 904 rear will fall exactly on the firewall of the 914, just like it does on the 904. The distance from the rear wheel to the fire wall is the same on both cars.
It's going to be fun!

I remember seeing a picture of a burned out 904 (maybe South African) and I thought the firewall and "hell hole" area looked very much like a 914. There wasn't much in the way of detail though, and I've always wondered if

I remember seeing a picture of a burned out 904 (maybe South African) and I thought the firewall and "hell hole" area looked very much like a 914. There wasn't much in the way of detail though, and I've always wondered what elements from the 904 may have been carried over to the 914.

I'm finding a lot of similarities.
This is from 904-0025.

The sixer is getting her new gearbox this week. Do you think I need more tire back there?

The gearbox is in, hopefully shake down will be Friday!

What size and type of wheel are those?

Some racing wheel, they're coming off, I had planned to research them then.

Wheels look like Jongbloed to me. Those are probably older, but on the current jongbloedracing.com site, the 305 wheel looks like yours ... THey make nice, lightweight wheels.

Scott

Are you selling them?

Eventually yes, I just need to see what they bring.

Gotta say you've got some pretty cool parts laying around.

I'll quit stocking you for your take-off parts.

Max-
You should come to the open house on Sept. 5th, there is cool stuff everywhere.

I haven't lurked in a while so I'm late to the show. Still have to put in my 2 cents, and they are, "Man, I wish you would have picked a different car to do your Frankenstein build on." You say you care about the car being a Porsche, which is the seemingly only reason you didn't build a frame ground up. Yet you don't give a rat's behind about it being a Porsche. Porsche is more than a name to most of us and the donor car you selected has history. You're not honoring Porsche heritage by building a fake 904 on a perfectly good 914 chassis.

You're going to do what you're going to do, but bleh. You could have selected a different car. No excuses for that.

Have fun.

Randy,
I'll make the same arguement to you that I made to everyone else. Everyone wanted $25,000+ for half finished six conversions. Nobody wanted this car, it had been languishing on ebay for months, I got it for $15,000, and sold the gearbox for $5000, so I'm down to $10,000. The car had not been raced in years and was destined to be sitting for many more. I will drive it and maybe race again with it.
When I first got the car I offered to trade it for a tired six conversion if anyone wanted to preserve the heritage, all I heard was crickets.
So in actuality I am saving this car, it was destined to be chopped up for it's parts, which it would have been in a few years time.
As far as preserving history, I am also restoring the 58 A Coupe that won at Daytona in 66, I pulled this one out of the mud, where it was dumped in 69.

Matt. Check your PM's.

I don't think your comments aren't valid ,Adam has a lot of history in the Porsche resto world, and he has pointed that out clearly what he is doing,get over it man ..really ,wait till the car is finished and then make comment,can't see it being a hack job.
Use google and have a good look @ some REALLY horrible things done to ANY Porsche and come down to earth
Its going to be another Porsche with a differant set of clothes afterall...nothing more than that,cheers.

Ok, I am actually offering to save this car. This deal will only cost you the time for the chassis' to get transported. I have a very highly built 914-6 race chassis (conversion but so is this car) that I am offering in trade. As I posted earlier, I already have the original Garretson's body work and rare early Gotti wheels. I was going to use it on the MetalCraft car, but it can still be used for molds. It belongs on this car, and this car belongs in vintage racing. The Garretson team was an IMSA championship and Le Mans winning team. This car was the car they built after Walt Maas won the 1976 IMSA GTU championship. It deserves to be preserved. So what if the last guy didn't care about it? So what if it might change your build timeline a little? Is that worth ruining a 40 year old piece of history that doesn't have far to go to be as raced?

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Here is a similar non historic chassis to build on for similar dollars http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=262320

Here's one that's only $2000! Does need and engine and some parts to complete though.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/181835800655?force...5&viewitem=

Take dug's offer. No peer pressure

It looks like the price was right on this car, but it's the wrong chassis for your project. Any average 914 can have the -6 mounts welded in, bolt on a few parts, cut what you don't need and have a 904 that didn't sacrifice history in the process.

OT- What's the story with all the bathtubs?

I'm not bashing you, but I think what you're planning to do could have easily been done on a roller, or something without history. There are a ton of people who show up on this forum with pipe dreams of what they want, start cutting a car up, then abandon it... so I'm a little biased. I rarely believe anyone until I see the car actually done. You have a nice graveyard, but like many of them I have seen, it looks like most of those cars are destined to rust away out there because of lack of time.

The OP is not in the restoration business.
He buys and sell cars and parts.
This project is most likely being done because the car and parts were available for the right price.
Glenn knows the right and wrong here.
A race car with documented participation and performance has value and will always be significant. And should be preserved. The better the job and the documentation the greater the likelihood of wider recognition.
Others seem to agree.
Also, to me it's a goofy mashup.
A 904 with 10 " wide tires in front and 14" in rear ?
Or a 914 race car with 6" wides all around ?

Lots of bickering here. As much as I empathize with saving a (possibly) historic car... It's his car! Chop it up. Grind it up. Part it out. Do what you want with it. I want to see the finished 904.

This reminds me of all the grief us Left Coasters used to get from folks in the Rust Belt for cutting up so-so condition cars. We would practically hear screaming on the boards here--"that could be saved", and "that car is better than my driver!" But when the cars were offered for sale, the same Rust Belt folks were nowhere to be found.

To most who are complaining, I say: Put up or shut up.

To Dug, I say: Way to put up! I hope he takes you up on your offer, so a car with race history can be preserved.

--DD

I agree. This isn't the car that Michael Schumacher won his 7th world championship in. It is an old race car that was put out to pasture and subsequently bought by the current owner. Every one of the folks bitching about it being cut up had the same chance to buy it that he did. If it was that important, they would have bought it then, or they would be making offers now.

I was in Rome a few years ago and actually got a tour from the daughter of a previous mayor to the city. They find history to be a complete pain in the ass when it comes to development.

The eye of the beholder ain't always the owner.

if that is Dave McClain's #19 car from the 1966 24 hrs of Daytona, it DNF 80 laps in with a gearbox problem.
I hope we will see this 356 on the track again some day!

Don't even pay a moments notice to the naysayers. I'd just start ignoring the ridiculous posts telling you what to do, what not to do and why. Enjoy whatever you do: the process, the designing, the details and the driving. I just hope you can "sit up straight" - at 6'5" tall, I believe I'd be a little cramped!

put him in the comphy chair. nobody expects the comphy chair.

D-
Since you decided to post publicly what we had been talking about privately I tell you again what I told you. I really wish you or someone had made this offer before my 904 body was finished and before I had dropped thousands into the car. Your original offer to trade chassis wasn't going to work because I have spent a lot of money getting this car sorted, so I would have to do that all over again. Not to mention it would put me months behind on the build.
Like I said before, this car sat on ebay for 6 months with no one wanting it, everyone of you guys could have bought it, but you didn't. Had I not bought it the car would still be sitting under a tarp in a FL backyard sinking into the earth. So it's easy to throw rocks now about what I should do with MY CAR, but I didn't dig this car out of some obscure location under the noses of all the true believers, it was on EBAY, for the world to see or buy, but no one bought it but me. And now that I have sunk thousands into the car and am ready to begin my build the peanut gallery wants to poke sticks.
Concerning a couple of points.
1. About my "graveyard", anyone who knows Unobtanium knows if you stop here from year to year the cars are different cars, they get sold to people who are restoring them.
2. In terms of me not finishing cars, you may be right, the Spoodster sold before I could even finish it, because a guy loved the build I had done, he is finishing it in Australia. But believe you me, I spent 5 years working on that car, when everyone said it couldn't be done or that I didn't have the skills to do it. Well, I built that car and had guys fighting over who was going to buy it.
3. Concerning whether or not I am a restoration shop, I'm not, I make my living buying and selling Porsches, mostly 356's, but I got into this because of my love of the cars, and when I'm not pumping cars across the world I work on my own projects, this 904 is the latest one. After that is the aluminum 550 Spyder, after that will be the A Coupe Daytona car, and after that I have a one owner painted dash 65 912 that needs some love. Luckily, I'm only 40 and have time on my side.

Bottom line, it's my car, and it's my car because no one wanted it. Still no one has offered to buy it from me for any real money, the only offer is Dug's trade which would put me thousands down the toilet to get back to what might be square one. Even Dug said he can't throw any money at the deal.
So I should lose thousands of dollars to make a few of you guys happy? Really?

You eat puppies for breakfast don't you ?


BLASPHEMER !!!

Sometimes, but my favorite pastime is kidnapping pretty boys from VA.
"Hey pretty man, want to see some shiny wheels in the back of big daddy's window-less van..."
Works every time, look at this cutey!

--DD

You started this thread to tell the world you'd be cuttin up a historic race car for your project. I'm surprised that you're surprised people actually care. I didn't have the money to save the car when it was on ebay. You keep using that as justification for your decision to cut it up.

The car hsan't been cut yet. And you haven't spent any money modifying the chassis yet. In fact you got money back out of it by selling parts. What I'm offering won't take months to accomplish. And it sounds like you have four other projects and plenty of car related work to do in the mean time.

So what it sounds like you're saying to all of us that care is simply, you don't care about the history and you're going to cut it up anyway. The rest is just justification to ease your conclscience.

And just in case it was unclear. I'm offering to pay shipping both ways, and swap the engine over. That's not costing you anything. Where do you lose thousands?

cheers,
dug

I've met Bob G. Great guy, a true Porsche enthusiast. I'd love to see a happy ending here.

Porsche is about the people.

That said the man with the title and the man with the gold makes the call.

Good luck

Gawd, let the guy build HIS car and go away. You may not agree with what he is doing, but enough with the naysaying. I see so many iterations of the 914 here that look like crap to me, but I keep my opinions to myself. Heck, people probably think my build is stupid, so what?

On with the build!!!!!

I don't see this guy as someone who is going to cut up a car and let it sit.

Adam, you seem like a reasonable guy
can't something be done to make this happen???
a couple more minutes with Scott in the van??

I didn't want to do this but if you don't do this deal I have a 540 in the yard I am going to

Click to view attachment

Just sayin

I just wanted to say, I think putting a 904 body on a 914 is a very cool idea. I even contacted the guy in Canada that makes the 904 body myself to find out what it would cost when I heard about his work last year.

I think everyone here thinks it could end up being an amazing car. Some of us just think it's a shame that another equally amazing car has to die in the process.

If it was only about the money for us, then Glenn and I would be cheering you on. There are only around 36 914s that ever ran an IMSA race, and I own one and Glenn owns more than one. So you're really doing us a favor. Now I have 1 of 35:)

All of my arguing is just an effort to sway you toward wanting to save it. If you perceived it any other way, as an attack or an insult, that is a byproduct of my poor political skills and was not my intent.

And for everyone who says "stop telling him not to do it," I say, that is exactly what a public forum is for. Everyone gets to have an opinion. Adam's is just as valid as mine. If you don't have a strong enough ego to handle people disagreeing with you, then stay in your garage and stay off the internet. If you want to show off your project, be prepared for some criticism to come with the congratulations. If you do something controversial, get ready for some more.

I wanted a real 914-6 GT, or as real as I could afford. So I started by finding a 914-6 that had been previously flared. I didn't want to cut a pristine car to make the modification because they are so rare. It took me more time, but my conscience is satisfied enough to air it publicly. It won't bother me at all if someone tells me I should have restored it to original.

So Adam has every right to say the same thing. The way I see it, he opened the door to saving the car when he asked for an alternate chassis. Now I am just trying my hardest to keep that door open.

cheers,
dug

Holy Crap - make the deal or don't . . .

I've often though of cutting up my rust bucket and putting a Beck body on it . . . this is an awesome idea. . . can we please get back to the build?

How cool would it be to make the 904 body just a little larger for us taller guys, that could fit the teener a whole lot better.

I'll stay out of the argument but can I have those dirty old tan seats in the back of ya van for 50 bucks.