you know there is two views on preservation @StarBear .
your "incorrect" ones were correct according to one school of thought.
that is they present as the history of the car through your ownership and maintenance work over 48 years.

i wouldn't worry too much.

i'm tempted to believe that karmann took the doors off the 914s for something as dumb as being able to fit in their spray booth. somewhere i have seen a photo of the karmann plant spray booth around that time in the late 60s and early 70s. its a kind of tent like thing at the end of the factory. the doors opened pretty wide on 914s.
i dunno. might try and find that photo again.

That makes sense about the 22,000 — I was adding 69 production to the total 70 production and forgot for a second that 4 months of 70 production are 71 model year cars.

But about when the white car was made does seem strange to me. Everything I've read says August 1st started the production year. The 33rd week of the year, whether 69 or 70 was the week starting Monday August 11th or 10th respectively. If the chassis was made August 10th, 1970 it would be a 1971 model year car, but it's clearly not. And that's just the chassis — the car would have been completed even later. So it is weird to me that either the car was made in 69 and the chassis sat for 10+ months or else they didn't start making 71 model year cars until halfway through August. And that's not even thinking about the break — I thought that happened July..

your observation is correct. its extremely late in the piece to be august and still a 70 MY.

as far as i can work out from our 74 research they made 74s as late as july 74.
we came up with one sole example.

the earliest 74s were august 73. so the break might have been either end of july or start of august when it came to 74s and factory holidays shutdowns. i think germans were fairly traditional and summer holidays were set in stone? but it was still the era of the economic miracle and the idea of work, work, work (as per the japanese of that time) - don't know enough about their traditions and what is the summer break.

the earliest 75 1.8s i came across were august of 74.
i'd have to back and check the karmann plates to work out when in august.
i don't have a karmann plate number for the 74 that was built in july.

looks a little more nebulous when it comes to 70? maybe. like maybe they didn't have a holiday. or they shifted it a bit. or they finished off a few more 70s before they started on 71s.
or maybe cars built to order and playing catch up? if you ordered a 70 you would expect to get a 70 not a 71 model. not sure what waiting lists for cars were like back then.
probably not as bad as right now!!!!!!! but i doubt they would have left a body shell lying around for 11/12 (not 10) months. its a long long time. if they did it would have been only to do some serious rectification work and its difficult to imagine it taking that long to do it.

dunno. mysteries of the 914!

i've got some sense of when these cars finally rocked up in showrooms and finally got sold as whatever model years they were.
eg. mine was built in jan 74 but not sold until may 74.
and @StarBear is an original owner. so he can tell you when he saw his in the showroom in east coast USA and bought it. his was made in november 73,
the whole thing has lags in time,

@nathanxnathan

i think i found the answer to the question about 70 models.
its there on this website in the members vin # listings.
they appear to be building 70 MY 914s as late as sept 1970.
unless members here were when they entered their info?
how that works i do not know!
germans!

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

@wonkipop very cool to see. I should have checked the database!

It would be nice if there was a form for picture verification of cars, like upload the chassis and vin number pics to have like verified entries. Some of what is there is questionable, like the last production 4 cylinder car of the 70 model year is 50,000 cars past the 2nd last 4702963897

Yep, my 74 produced in Nov 74 but lag until I got in freshly delivered in May 74. Dealer hadn’t even logged it in yet. I have the Porsche certificate indicating the facility invoice date. Late March I think.

yes

and the first 71 on the vin list here is 4712900022 (first batch of finished 71 prod as 22 car). K # 3539579 = wed 26 aug 1970.

the one above i posted is two from last of 70 at 13310. last car is supposed to be 312.
K # = thurs 27 aug 1970.

the body shell for the first 71 is started a day before the last 70.
both have 09/70 vin stickers according to what the members entered.

be interesting to study other years of production for this overlap.
don't think it happens for 74 to 75 but you never know.


EDIT - additional info.
took a look at 74 to 75 transition on vin data base here.
they appear to have taken a whole month off beginning mid july and ending mid august.

near to end 74 =4742921331 (40 cars from end).
seems it was a special creamsicle right near the end of production.
K # = 2829547 = tues 9 july 74.

near to start 75 = 4752900062
K # = 3349508 = thurs 15 Aug 74.

its thought that during this month they shifted production line of 914s across to beetle and replaced discontinued karmann ghia. this is about the time of the beginning of the end for the 914 as they scale down production. they also start building corrados at this moment. so the summer break in production of 914s may have been unusually long.

would have to go and look at transition from 73 to 74 to get a better idea of a typical summer break. just about all the data you need is here due to members building up the vin data base over the years. great resource.

pretty interesting stuff given mine is a jan car for may 74 sale as well.
makes you wonder if 1.8s were not ready/available to customers in the USA until almost the summer of 74.

i know they had a dedicated mechanic looking after the L jets at capital porsche audi in maryland. his name is written into my owners manual. tom martinot. he ended up a vintage porsche engine rebuilder in northern california and is retired now i think.
started his career at capital porsche audi as a young L jet trained technician. i think he was a young german who came to the USA, but not certain.
they probably had to train up the tech guys at each dealer as well to get ready to deal with the new fuel injection?

anyway back to the hinges.
i can't find any more examples of very early cars to know whether the hinge pins were painted on not. fairly esoteric detail. but generally speaking they were not painted on cars later. thats for certain. early cars. who knows. suspect any painted pins are due to resprays?

@nathanxnathan

i had a look at 73 to 74.

last 73 is friday 20 july 73.
4732927642. (approx 20 cars from end).
k # 2959583

first 74 is tues 14 august 73
4742900034
k # 33292504 4th car started, 34th Vin.

conclusion they finish probably on friday 20 july and start up again on tuesday 14 august.
about a three week break.

so 70 to 71 transition speaks of either working through summer or perhaps picking up on overdue/late 70 orders at start of 71 production.

@wonkipop Impressive research

So most years there was a break in production in July and startup of next year's production around mid August it seems. Sounds like there were some anomalies, especially in the 70–71 transition.

I think that makes some sense as things were a lot less standardized in many ways at that point. And why there may be some anomalies in door hinge paint during that time as well.

Thinking about door pins, it seems to me (my best analysis of the process) that doors would have been fit to the car before paint and adjusted for position. Then they were taken off at the pin for paint (door and car)— to better access the jambs (and possibly to install some of the internals like the stay mechanism at this point?). They would then be put back on with the pin. It really does seem the most logical explanation for why most pins are not painted and also seems like just a good way to have done it.

exactly.

its the like rear trunk lid. that was on before painting as bolts tell the story there.
but the front trunk lid was off and painted separately, bolts tell the story there.
not sure, but think engine lid also looks to have been off during painting.

the front trunk lid being off is self explanatory. fuel tank install etc.

they might have left the doors off to ease interior installation.
dashboard etc.
i've never seen photos of 914 body shell at stage of raw delivery to the assembly hall so its hard to know.
as you say had to be test fitted on and then taken off again and reinstalled later.
no other way to do it and leave those painted hinge plates alone.