I have wanted a 914 since I was a kid and have been searching on and off for a 914 for around 20 years. The ones I've looked at over the years made me walk for one reason or another. I gave up on the idea of buying a 914 several times. Then I came across this Sunflower Yellow '74 1.8. Same owner since '76. Under 92K miles. It's always been inside and all common rust areas were addressed. Interior is in excellent shape. Signed the papers on it less than 2 weeks ago. All I have done with it so far is wiped all the vinyl down with meguiar's natural shine, cleaned the glass, and vacuumed it.

I brought it into my favorite p-car shop a week after I signed the papers for a full evaluation, an oil and trans fluid change, and came up with a few maintenance items to bring it back in for in before the winter. Anyway, now that it's got a clean bill of health, I can drive it and not worry so much. Even though I've been obsessed with getting one for years, I never really experienced driving one for more than a few minutes, and it is truly a blast to drive. There's a fun factor with these cars that is beyond compare.

A wash and wax will happen soon, but need to do a small test area to see what works with the paint. There are a few projects (mostly aesthetic) to do over the winter (add side mirror, replace sail panel material since metal trim is on the car, add/replace a few (914)rubber items, etc.) and I can’t wait. I was originally planning on adding side decals and a hood badge but now I'm thinking I might leave it as is. I like the fact that people who don't know what it is don't know what it is. On the other end of the spectrum, I was driving last week and a guy screamed "that's a Porsche 914!!!" like a kid seeing his hero in person for the first time. That gave me a dumb grin. After the winter I’ll decide what direction I’m going with it. I was originally thinking built motor but I am having a ton of fun with it as is. My last fun car had more than 4X as much hp, but I don’t recall it ever being this rewarding to drive.

If I do anything interesting with it, I will post on this thread.
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Your car looks nice. I say drive it and enjoy. No engine mods needed. Yellow paint adds 25 HP.........

Congrats on your car! Exact same story with me, wanted one since I was a kid, blah blah blah. And I got my 74 1.8 in November of last year. They are SO much fun to drive! Enjoy

Welcome to the community and congratulations on purchasing your 914.
Enjoy it in good health.
Bill.

Got mine a little over a month ago. Drive it every chance I get. So much that some of the electronics started working again

I don't care for the hood badge. I think of it as a tramp stamp. Yours is Virgin. That being said, one of mine has the hood badge and PORSCHE lettering on the grill.

interesting clor combo ! Green carpet....... have fun with the 914 !

Wouldn't the tramp stamp be the rear Porsche reflector?

If you do anything, get a set of REAL four lug Fuchs (or, Pedrinis, or Mahle baby burners) for it. Don't do a hood badge or stickers, I'd leave it virgin.

Maybe a set of brown coco mats to cover some of the faded carpet, try to leave the originality of the car.

It looks like a good solid car. Best of luck!!! and....

Congrats...looks like a nice car. When I first got my '74 1.8, I planned to do a couple of things asap, like remover the bumpettes and add Euro rear lenses. Over time, I changed my mind and left everything the way it was except for the wheels, which were steelies like yours. I went to five lugs, but if I had given it more thought, I would have kept the steelies and sent them out to be widened. That may not be your taste, but the point is, look through the hundreds of pics at the top of the garage page and see what you like. Attend some Porsche meets (Hershey in the spring comes to mind) and give it plenty of thought before making a permanent change. Best of luck.

Thank you all very much for all the feedback. This is without a doubt one of the best car forums and all the great information helped push me over the edge with a private purchase without a PPI as I truly felt prepared. I looked at one recently at a local dealer and the sales guy thought I had owned several because I gave him a full tutorial (in a nice way) on what was right and what was wrong with the car they had for sale. The people here are incredibly friendly and generous, and you don’t find that on all automotive forums. Also, there are tons of forum links that I have saved for reference along with referenced external links as well. For example, on the bowlsby site link (http://bowlsby.net/914/Classic/RareDocs.htm) which DD posted on this forum, I printed the ’74 owners manual and created a binder. Clearly that took a lot of effort to scan all the pages and I truly appreciate it.

I followed your posts and found your search and ultimate success oddly motivational. I think it helped me walk from a car that wasn’t going in a good direction and I started searching seriously again.

I was planning on buying fuchs when I was considering a car with rivieras. I actually like the look of the factory steelies better than I thought I would. If anything, I’d switch them out for the 4-lug fuchs, but concentrating my efforts and funds on the safety/maintenance items right now.

Thanks for the input! I've been to Hershey a couple times now and trying to get back to the cars and coffee in West Chester, PA (I think they are in the process of relocating it) where there are usually several p-cars. This air-cooled car obsession is unfortunately (or fortunately) not new.

yellow cars are the fastest

I'm with you, man. Also celebrating my first 9/14 with a running teener. Love the interior on yours. Coco mats to compliment in brown/yellow would be amazing.

Got a thumbs-up from a corner panhandler on my way back from work this evening - "nice car man!" I don't get that driving the Fit.

I'm gonna third/fourth everyone who's said skip the nose badge. Stick on a nice vinyl decal for a few weeks to get it out of your system, then go back to basic.

Keep those steelies.

Lovely looking car! I personally would think about getting some hub caps for the steelies and running those!

Beware the HP demon. Once you start down that path, there will never be enough power... At least, not for long!

--DD

Took a ride this morning and headed in the direction of the new location of the west chester, pa cars and coffee (starbucks at 4895 west chester pike, newtown square, pa 19073). Was pleasantly surprised to see a nice showing. Met some good people...lots of p-car guys. Definitely worth a visit if you are in the area on a saturday morning. Everything from mustangs to mclarens and plenty of nice water-cooled and air-cooled p-cars, but only one 914.

Looks like a clean car,the wheels aren't on my wishlist but it's your car so do as you like ,enjoy it .