QUOTE(horizontally-opposed @ Sep 5 2021, 10:10 AM)
QUOTE(wonkipop @ Sep 4 2021, 12:57 AM)
its just my opinion but butzi porsche had nothing to do with it?
its piech? sibling rivalry?
and guigiaro was on a fishing trip after big marlin, like lee marvin fishing off cairns.
the great barrier reef was in wolfsburg not stuttgart?
the rest of them don't count. design irrelevancies.
but g g is not in the same league as the other awfulness.
Butzi had as much to do with the 914's design as he did with the 901 and 904: He headed up the team of designers who did the car—much as Lapine did with the 924, 944, 928 or Lagaaij did with the 968, 993, 986, 996, CGT, E1 Cayenne, etc etc. Which is…a lot. They managed the projects, even if the Hatters and Larsons and Vargas did the work.
If you look at the 914 styling models, the license plates carry Butzi's initials, just as 901 models did. Klie, who did the original Fuchs wheel for the 911, is the primary designer of note on the 914 much as Mobius can be mainly credited for the 928 or Larson can mainly be credited for the 986 or 997.
So many book authors got it wrong with the 914, just as they did with the idea that Butzi designed the 901 or 904. He didn't draw the cars, but he did manage the projects—and he arguably created the department that allowed for their design. All indications are that the 901, 904, and 914 would never have happened under Komenda—an extremely gifted body designer but one stuck in the 1950s. Or 1940s.
FULLY with you on Guigiaro, but I don't hate the Vizcaya. The others are abysmal, and would be better preserved in photos only and restored as actual 914s. What all of them do, however, is illustrate just how far ahead of its time the 914's design was. The world just wasn't ready for it, much as I wasn't in 1990. Cue the "good car, but about that body" styling studies…and some from *heavy* hitters. Only in the last 10-20 years has the 914 started to look better and better and better to me. And while it may be sacrilege to say this, I prefer the appearance of a great 914 to most 904s. Not there yet with the SWB 911, which remains one of the greatest Porsche designs of them all to these eyes—right up there with the 908LH. Good from very angle, and I never tire of looking at a SWB 911 or 912 when they're presented well. Would love to own one someday.
But I'd rather drive a 914.
nah, he (butzi) had nothing to do with it (the version that was made).
i was around in the late 70s and 80s when he was scthum about it.
the whole 914 thing and who did it was a mystery.
no one would own up. no one would own it.
(piech was off doing audi quattros and working on his own post porsche life).
its all tangled up in the unravelling around the replacement to the beetle.
he(butzi) had a go at it early on and his version was awful. sorry. but truly awful.
if they had done his design i for one would never have been entranced or gone to the trouble i went to get one. dud. its there in the study models recently published.
its kind of known now how it came about. finally.
its taken a long time but its clear it was piech working around butzi and using h k to style it.
i've never wanted a 911 and finally i know why i thought like that.
piech's big contribution to the 911 was to tell them they were screwed in the head doing a wet sump. he is the guy who insisted on the dry sump. he was barely out of his teens i think when he made that contribution.
said with good humour because i am a design nobody.
i just know what i like and finally i got to find out why i know what i like.
re the license plates on the study model cars.
all of them had his (butzi) initials.
even the study models of the vw beetle replacement.
its called flattering the ego of the boss' son?
i know, i've seen that sh%t first hand.
i know how piech must have felt.
and he was the cousin.
you should check out some of the things piech said about butzi porsche.
its hilarious.
butzi porsche was fine when he was managing some kind of idea of an evolution.
ie how to evolve a 356 into a 911.
and he lots of help. along with lots of anquish about how to do it.
but 914s were not an evolution, they were a revolution?
and i think its clear from early design studies he did not have a handle on revolution.
thats what i think.
anyway, americans bought them, drove them and didn't care less. because they have common sense and know a good design when they see it.