A friend was looking at a 914 last week. The car looks extremely clean. Immaculate. Almost suspiciously so to me. (not saying it isn't a beautiful car, just that I think it maybe was restored/painted).

Questions:

1) I have never seen plastic sleeves like on the hood springs in this pic. Were they on the cars when new?

2) Was the hook hardware for the spring painted the body color? I thought it was unpainted metal.

Pix:

1 - spring covers - I'd not seen them at any new 914s on the dealer lots back in the day 7 I test drove a few 73-76 MYs, but they could've been a dealer removed item used in shipping, or a goodie you could buy at the dealer for the truly anal owner. Also a PO may have put those on to keep the dust & rust bits that form on the springs over time from coming out onto the paint when they're stretched while the hood opens.

2 - spring bracket - it was always welded to the wheelhouse top & painted with the body (only the VIN on the pass. wheelhouse top was taped over to not get painted).

From what I can see, that's a great looking 74 in L80E 914!

We can continue our discussion about concours prep for your silver 914 at a future date at your convenience -- just call or email or PM. I'd suggest initially doing Wash & Shine Div & work with the judging sheets to perfect the 2 judged areas - interior & exterior; then later when you reach a comfort level with those & have more time to work on the storage & engine areas, then you can move up to Street Div.

It's mostly cleaning & detailing, so the engine we were looking at - if clean but with that dark color, may still show well. I say clean/detail for W&S then show it & see what gets gigged, & then work on those areas, using the judging sheets as a road map, then same for engine & interior later when the first 2 are done.

PS - for 2016 it looks like we'll have a separate class/award for 914s in W&S Div. too, so you won't have to lump in with the 911/912/930 cars there (it's already separate in all other Divs. above W&S). Please prove me right in recommending that splitting the 914s out as in other Divs. will encourage more 914ers to come out to try Concours!

BTW - Margie with the gorgeous blue 914-6 wants a hat too! I told her to talk to you & Sara for the shop to order her own, & also sent her to 914world to get into activities. We may see you two with her & Pail trekking up to OCR events at some point!

Cheers!
Tom
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Thanks for the reply, Tom! Yeah, that would be fun to split out the 914s in W&S.

I run int Margie and Paul a lot, so I'll carry some spare hats to the next PCA-SDR event (I ordered and extra 5 or 10 hats when I had them made).

Looks like a very nice car. I've not seen those spring covers and doubt they were ever a factory installed item. Shock tower bolts look to be original and have not been removed meaning original front suspension.

Love the color.

The car is immaculate. The friend was a moron and didn't buy it, due to a $1K difference in price he wanted to pay that the seller wouldn't come down on.

It sold for 19K a few days ago and is the cleanest car I have ever seen, based on multiple additional pix. '74 2.0.

If that's as clean everywhere as it looks in the pix, 19K doesn't sound bad. What else car wise can you buy for 19K??????

Very nicely preserved example. Not quite concours but 8-10 hours should bring the topside to sniff. Obviously, the spring covers are not stock (don't even know why you'd want them), but everything else looks stock. What's with the duct tape on the shock mount?

shifter knob ...Not.
Amco