Not sure if this has been posted yet. It just came out yesterday.
https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/heinrich...ie-and-the-914/
Has some interesting facts in it that I hadn't read befor so I thought I would share

Edit: just reread it and it appears that Andy Schmidt from 914World contributed to the article. Is that @sirandy or someone else?

article has an interesting tech drawing in it.
if you are in aus.

looks like a rhd steering wheel?

thanks for the link. i've not seen before, maybe the pics in the 50 year book but i don't have a copy of that yet?


Click to view attachment

Thanks for that link, wonderful photos and stories.

Yes, that is Sir Andy and happy birthday to him!

Yes, that would be me. I hadn't actually seen the full article yet.

Thanks, Gents - it's great to have a proper article. Good job, @SirAndy !


If only we had preserved more sketch proposals (nice to see the final pics vs the alternates and ponder what might have been) and scale clay (and hard) models of the exterior designs that are now timeless to us. . .

Of course, that's easy to say now . . . meanwhile, the 1/5th scale renshape (very dense milling/tooling foam) 550 Spyder (from a scan of an original) that I milled at work 15 years ago gathers dust in the garage attic . . . kids/wife will probably toss it out with all my other "car junk" when I finally "buy the farm" . . .

Looks like steering wheels on both sides. That could be interesting for shared drives.

@bkrantz
had not thought of the simultaneous arrangement.
if so obviously intended exclusively for aus market.
"empowering" back seat drivers to dual control status.
wonder if they had dual brake pedals in mind as well?

I'm pretty sure the drawings just show the layout for *either* left or right hand drive.

You can't really have two steering shafts merge into one and still expect them to operate independently.

It was a great article. I always like to hear new things about our cars. Thanks!

So one side is only for show? That could be even more fun for some couples.

No, it means that instead of spending the time to do two almost identical technical drawings, one with the steering wheel on the left and one with the steering wheel on the right, you only make one drawing that shows how the linkage would run for either of those implementations.

it is a great article sir andy.
i really like seeing all the photos of good old heinrich.
he had taste in selecting the frames for his glasses.
and he was avante - garde and as is usual in these scenarios he got passed over,
because they just didn't get it, you know all those smart dudes that took over the design studio. but he hit the nail on the head, and half a century later he is finally being recognised. the master of minimalism.

he did the targa bar on the 911. genius.
and the fuchs mag on the 911. more genius.

don't worry about me and mr. bbkrantz cracking jokes.
i think mr. krantz should be awarded aus citizenship for his sense of humour.

i'd love to see more of those drawings for the rhd version.
its dated 1969.
think of the trouble they would have had to go to.
mirror firewall.
mirror fuel tank.
mirror back pad and passenger seat in interior.
mirror handbrake.
no wonder it never happened.
whereas a 911 is like a compromise rhd version (or is it a factory conversion?).
you would not believe how compromised the rhd 911s are.
you have to open the passenger door in a 911 to spring the rear engine hatch.
and thats in a 80s 911 they were flogging to stockbrokers (aus stockbrokers too!).

its great.
lets see some more stuff from the archive from the best little car out of the box that porsche ever did.

Great article and love the archival photos. Thanks for posting the link.

There’s no question in my mind that those drawings indicate that there was every intention to make rhd versions ex factory.

It was obvious to me when I did conversion on my car. The mirrored pedal box detents on the floorpan are a pretty obvious clue as well.

The seats in the drawing are seperate too and identical, not the weird bucket and bench seat arrangement that graced the first year of production.

The fuel tank shown in the above drawing is different to what went into production to my eye also. The production tank has the bulbous end on the right hand side that compromised the conversion. My feeling is that drawing came before the decision to build only lhd cars.

i reckon they are drawing a kind of all in one mirror drawing phillsteck - when it comes to the fuel tank, similar to the two steering wheels in the same drawing.
both would have had bulbs, but mirrors of each other.

its a purist car.

the only thing they would not have been able to mirror would have been the battery location in the engine bay.

know what you mean about the floor pan.

the seats are fascinating.
i'd go so far as to say the original idea was the way they first came out and they would do the rhd as a flip. but they were grappling with the idea of a perfectly balanced car with only a driver in it,,,, like a race car. so rhd was a challenge.



i'd love to see some more drawings from the archive on rhd.

somehow the original post repeated, so deleted.