My 73 knee pad is missing the bright strip as seen in the pic below from an old FS ad. I kind of like the look without but wondering if mine originally had one. If so, I suppose I need to track one down. Thanks.

BB -

My `73 2L was a very early one built on 8/31/72 by chassis no. & has the chrome strip (I'm 2nd owner since 12/75 so know it's original), but Steve G.'s Sahara Beige in the O&H Forum's "The few, the rare...." topic does not have one & his is a very late production `73 2L.

But I don't know at what point it would've changed, & if it was like other random parts like the chrome to black window winders, etc. - then it would've which one they grabbed out of the parts bin on the assembly line, for as long as they lasted.

Judging by your VIN being in the 18,000s - you're near the end of the 73 MY, & you've owned it since the 80's from the 2nd owner - so unless you know it was replaced by the original or 2nd owner in the 70s - 80s before you - then I'd say it's probably one built without the strip.

After the W. German Deutche Mark started escalating vs. the US Dollar in 1973 driving German car prices up on exchange rates alone - Porsche went on a cost savings purge, & many things were dropped in the late 73 MY & 74> MYs. The Aluminum door sills going to black plastic like on Steve's late `73 is another example.

So if yours also has the black plastic door sills, then that's probably another indicator that yours also lacked the chrome strip.

BTW for others wondering about theirs - the late dash with the side vents only came in at the `72 MY update/partial-redesign, so this chrome strip thing would only be a relatively short 72 + partial 73 MY run.

Cheers!
Tom
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PS - you can decode your 1519534 Chassis no. with a 1972 calendar (google for one) & this -

Click to view attachment

Per the bottom (X)XX - if the center 5 is a 6 or 7, then add 100 or 200 to your production number that day at the last 2-3 digits (5 + 1 or 2).


Tom
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Thanks Tom! Thorough and helpful as always.

The build date on my car was 4/5/73 and yes, it is a mix and match car. It did have plastic thresholds, but has early door handles with the chrome base. Also, one early and one late rear targa latch. It has late brake lines but with an early rear brake proportioning valve (that made ordering a replacement hard line kit fun). The most interesting was that it had one late and one early rear caliper (lates on the front). I have receipts of some brake work from the PO (second owner) but no mention of anything other than pads. The 2nd owner bought the car in 76 so the OO didn't have it very long. I love my bottom of the parts bin oddball.

Your answer perfectly satisfies my question and makes me happy both because it is one less expense to worry about, and I'm not a big fan of bling so happy to have the minimalist knee pad.

Brent, aka "BB" -

If very short OO, then it's possible that it was a demo or dealer staff/owner car before being sold used. Your docs may tell you on that, or at least enable you to trace & contact OO & PO.

To tell you the truth - I had to look at my pre-start-of-resto pix to see my dash, cuz I didn't recall, never really paid attention to that bit of bling (so at least it's low key). It was a little detail that carried over from the days of 356s & early SWB/LWB 911/912 design - which looks great in the period cars.

Click to view attachment

We both have the early chrome bezel dash vent controls, which I like.

I see that yours has the rear window defogger, which comes in handy in your neck of the woods, but not so much so here in SoCal, except after an evening of heavy cuddling with your GF - LOL.

Mine has mixed late front & early rear calipers too, had the chrome winders which I & PO/OO had replaced when broken (but I have an NOS set of chrome to go back on, looks odd with the early chrome door handle & black winders now). I talked with Eric Shea at PMB about restoring mine & returning (rather than a core exchange) to preserve the originals, which they can do so you may want to talk with him too for restoring your calipers too.

But yours being so late with the chrome winders is an oddity, so look in the PO & OO records to see if they replaced the thin black arm ones which they went to in 73 MY after the early Aug-Dec production. They may not have kept the receipts for a $5-10 part which the thin black ones were most prone to break (I must've replaced 4 of mine - mostly driver side). So your POs may have backdated to the stronger chrome type &/or preferred the looks.

Not a big deal if you like & keep the chrome ones, but AFAIK the thin arm black type is still available from Porsche, but probably more than the $7.50 for my last one replaced at Rusnak/Thousand Oaks (Jokes) in 1983 during my rolling resto `80-83, just prior to it's getting hit in the UCLA parking garage!

FYI - Just Dashes can resurface your lower & other pads & dash, if you can't find a decent uncracked one, & Porsche Classic, Stoddards, SMC, AA, etc. all also carry the new production OEM dashes - or recover.

Good Luck!
Tom
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Hi Tom,

This is good stuff. I do have the name of the dealer and OO in PA in the documents with the car. The dealership appears to be a used car dealer now. I tried to contact them but no response. I got a pile of receipts from the PO which tell quite a tale of this car beginning in KC, then out to DC, down to Houston, out to Denver, and back to Kansas. I've thought about contacting the PO but when I bought the car, I got the impression it was a painful time in her life so have been reluctant to try to find her.

I also prefer the chrome bezel control panel. The rear defrost was not original to the car. Chris Baker donated it to me for the cost of shipping. Like you said, a handy option in this area so I really wanted to add it.

The brakes are a story. To be clear, mine had 2 front and 1 rear late caliper and 1 early rear caliper. i thought it was weird to have calipers mixed right to left. Now it has all late calipers because I sent my originals in for replating and they came back looking really nice but the plater left them in the acid too long and ruined the threaded bolt bores. A couple generous members graciously donated late cores which I sent to Eric in exchange for a set of nice plated calipers. The original cores are sitting in a box looking all pretty but useless.

I go back and forth on the window cranks. I am not sure at all they are original. At one point I had 3 914s and it is quite possible I swapped cranks from my 70 into the 2L. I remember having knobs break off the cranks but can't remember which car. I also know I bought some of the early Rabbit style cranks for one of them. Anyway, good chance these aren't original so maybe I will look into swapping to the late style.

My dash is a brand new 914Rubber repro. I splurged on their last Black Friday sale and just received it and installed it a couple weeks ago. I need to work on the alignment of the ashtray though. No budget to recover the knee pad at the moment but maybe at a future time.

As you can see, I didn't go with a period correct radio but it is a Blaupunkt. I just couldn't justify the expense of a period correct radio, plus adding a bluetooth module, and in the end still having a radio that didn't perform as well as a modern unit for a fraction of the price.

It's fun trying to reconstruct the history of these cars.

Brent -

Where in PA?

We who DD'ed our 914s tended to go everywhere with them!
I'd done the West Coast, Southwest, TX 7 OK in mine - & hope to do some good road trips in mine again sometime. But I've always lived here in SoCal since `63, & Pittsburgh PA `52 - `63 as a kid, so mine never left SoCal as it's home base.

I understand on the budget thing, cuz I'd already spent $7500+ on my `80-83 rolling resto, then was hit in May `85 in the parking structure while in grad school, & started family, etc., etc. - so she's sat in my garage since then, with minor work & assessment since `09-10 - after kids were grown & gone. I'll eventually get out of the garage & over to my shops after this CV-19 thing settles, & can get the house/garage resto done or along enough to get access to the garage.

Keep an eye out for a nice uncracked late lower knee pad, & a used period ratio if you want one, cuz they come up on here all the time. Mark Heard/914sixer seems to have some nice period radios every now & then.

BTW - you can get a pair of flat speakers for under or behind the seats to go to 4-way sound on that newer Blau if you want & no cutting & wiring through the car required - just under the carpets (also the bluetooth/jack modules, etc.). Woody's Customs out here in SoCal sells them on evil-bay. Lotsa Porsche & classic car folks use them.

https://www.woodyscustomshop.com/online-store/

You'll want the mid-gen narrow arm black window cranks - 75-76 went to the wide ones like the Rabbit ones. Good thing is that the cranks were all common to VW cars of the same years, so you can now get original German Porsche or VW, Brazilian vW, & after market of all 3 types.

Cheers!
Tom
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She came from Y.B.H. Porsche Audi Inc in Edgemont PA. The PA was an attorney who apparently moved a lot. I see a series of receipts for a location spanning months to years, then another series in another location. I do a lot of GIS mapping for my job and keep thinking I'll get the time to map out the history of this car. I think that would be fun.

I think I'm going to leave the period correct radio for the next owner. I had a standing alert on ebay for a long time and regularly scanned the classifieds but frankly, the price has gone well above what it is worth to me. I like my tunes and for period correct, I'd wind up at least $600 in and wind up with a shitty 70s technology tuner and one of the kludges for bluetooth that Woody's and others sell. Sure, they get the job done, but not nearly as elegant or user friendly. I also looked at the modern retro style head units from Woodys but still not wowed. Finding a modern unit wasn't easy either. Most of them look like disco and hip hop's bastard child. Blaupunkt doesn't actually exist anymore. Instead, the company that gutted them and sold off the parts now licenses the logo to whoever will pay. If you go to the US Blaupunkt web site, you find a bunch of cheap-ass ugly as hell radios not fit for paper weights. But when I looked at the international site, there was a completely different line. Much more understated and appeared to be a bit higher end (although not top of the line by any means). I ordered the Nurnberg model which actually shipped from Nurnberg.

Here are links to my stereo install in my build thread:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...t&p=2783931

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...t&p=2787909

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...t&p=2801031 I tucked a 75wx4 channel amp inside the center console and an 8" subwoofer in the passenger footwell. I'm waiting for 914Rubber to offer their footwell sub enclosure to complete that part but when done, it should be completely stealth with no loss of leg room. The factory pods have a pair of 4x6 Infinity Kappa speakers installed. The sound is WAY better than I had hoped and will be even better when the sub has a proper sealed enclosure. The system was capped off with an electric Hirschmann antenna from Woody's. I'm pretty happy with it all.

Oh, and my car has an interesting option I hadn't seen before but shows just how far ahead of its time it was



Okay, now to hunt down some window cranks. I had forgotten that the rabbit cranks were used in the late cars. I bought a pair of those for one of my other 914s just because I thought they were cool.

Brent -

And here I just stick my phone on Pandora playing Beach Boys or one of the other `50s - 60s - early-70's "channels"!

If you can't find the mid-era black cranks from Porsche, then try VW Classic etc. of them in the Bug/Bus/Ghia - same part.

Yes - I've noticed that classic car parts prices in general were going wonky for the past few years before COVID, & then a bunch of them decides to go Pirate & cranked them higher yet!

I was looking at a pair of NOS taillights for my `85 BMW E30 taillights, & the one guy doubled the already ridiculously overpriced parts on evil-bay - so I went with another seller. The a-hole eventually dropped back down, but he must've lost some sales besides me by being greedy!

I'd expect that eventually prices will moderate or drop due to the Recession/Depression which is accompanying CV-19, just as in 2007-10 & prior ones, since demand drops then.

PS - Edgemont is over east in the Philly area, so I don't know any dealers over there. We Steelers fans tend not to deal with the Eagles fans!

Cheers!
Tom
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Ordered them on ebay last night and they shipped today. Genuine VW made in Brazil. Looks like they've actually improved the design with a cast arm body and metal rivet but looks like the old part on the side that matters. Will see if they still look as good when they arrive.



Uh-oh. Does that mean I have an Eagles car?