Meanwhile, over on the Porsche 914 Facebook page...

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Well... Okay then.

This crap is why I tend to stay away from the 914 FB groups.

Zach

What can you say?

I bet it turns out his cars all had worn linkages, so he had four-speed transmissions with a regular H-pattern shift layout...

Oh wow....wow.

Gee; never knew there was a FB page.

In a world where more information is readily available than at any time in human history . . . Willful ignorance prevails.

Another good example of why I got rid of facebook years ago. Biggest time suck I have ever experienced. The level of stupidity on there is overwhelming.

It's pretty worthless - the only thing I do there is encourage people to get over here....

I only know about it because my brother is over there and I get a chuckle now and then when he sends something he saw over there. Don't have FB and don't plan to.

vs



I find a lot of sifting is necessary.

I agree with Keith. The man's an idiot. And generally speaking, some of FaceBook's forums are comprised of these idiots. On the other hand, there are three I know of that are quite the opposite. One of those three was created just to avoid uninformed, or generally speaking, idiotic responses. Two of these forums deal with water cooled conversions and the third with wiring harness'/ECU pin outs. I started one of these after tiring of uninformed comments from the peanut gallery and more importantly to have a place where informed and experienced comments would prevail. To date we are almost 1000 members. We have the same ground rules as this site and just like Clay I have to play Deputy Barney Fife occasionally. The difference between a site chock full of idiots and their comments vs a good site depends upon the moderator(s) and the effort put forth by them.

As do we.
We have a FB post up for WCR with a direct link. It's amazing how many FB peeps don't know about world..... but we are converting a few.

He sounds like someone that dishes out crap on
people’s auctions on BAT and isn’t bidding..

What the Facebook groups lack in accuracy, they make up for in number of responses. In both the FB groups and here I feel like there's a general lack of reading comprehension sometimes....


Like, if I ask a question about "A"...

Here:
-1 guy - Well here's a lot of info about "B"
-2nd guy - Here's a picture of when I did "C" 3 years ago.
-3rd guy - Whatever you do, don't buy parts from "E"
-4th guy - This is the information you're looking for about "A"

FB:
-5 guys with a correct answer about "A"
-25 guys with an incorrect answer about "A"
-45 guys with a correct answer about "B"
-10 guys in India posting spam

genius, I knew someone had a better idea

Granny had a saying…….” The world is daft except for thee and me …..and often I worry about thee”…..that was a 100 years ago but…Seems to apply today

FB is a scourge on society.

It promotes any Big Lie. Say it enough times and pretty soon some folks won't know the difference from the truth.

Carbs are better than FI

+1

Nope.

More better....it's more better.

there was one H shift pattern 914.
i've seen it.

it was one of 2 of the special order assessment cars brought in to australia around 1970.
it had a short ratio 4 speed hill climb box and it came from the factory that way.
it was ordered by hamiltons the porsche distributor here.
he could get what he wanted from the factory.

it was also rhd. mysterously. and not converted here..........a real mystery car.



but it was hardly what you would call a production line 914.
i doubt the in your face book guys are talking about that.

Get the VIN of the RHD 4-speed

After being compared with Barney Fife, I am not sure if this is a backhanded compliment or not.

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Seems like a good place for the hood badge debate... ...

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PM sent with VIN

I got bitched at on a FB 914 thread when I recommended to the OP - "Buy A Book. And Read It!"

Oh great, you send the stupid people over here!

We’re all much too old and experienced with 914’s to have a reason to post on FB. If one were serious about repairing their 914 I would think even a tiny bit of internet research would’ve led them here and not FB.

Man, Im on FB more than here due to other forums on FB that I moderate or attend. Tag me in next time "Myke Leskneeak" or "EvilWerksLLC" should work.

@davep

can't attach images to PMs.

this is the car. the VIN i gave you is 99% correct.
you are correct - it is registered on our VIN base here.
and it checks, location of chadstone is the location of the karmann ghia club back then in 08. that was a chadstone po box.
the owner since the time brian died probably registered it here back in 08 after she acquired it. brian died in 07. time flies. seems like yesterday.
thats the sort of thing she would do. she is very active in 356 and karmann ghia circles.



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these images are from some porsche club or porsche australia mag i found doing a google search using brians name and 914.
i have highlighted the text.
the article is 5 years old.
ursula recounts the information she had then.
she never talked to brian about the car so had her own slightly garbled version of it.
i ran into her and barry at a 356 run about 3 years ago when i finally succumbed to insistance and took a run with them with a mate of mine. something i did once and will probably never do again!!! clubs aren't really my thing.

i filled them in on the story with details they never knew.
i was with brian when he picked the car up from hamilton's farm.
brian was not the second owner.
the car was briefly in the hands of another owner, long time porsche customer of hamiltons in the late 60s and 70s. he crashed it and caused minor damage to one front fender. hamilton took the car back and kept it until he sold it to brian in the early 90s.
the current owner is the fourth owner. but i guess the third long term owner. its been in very few hands.

its a 4 speed. it was a car that hamilton got into australia as an assessment car.

originally it was thought this car was converted to RHD in australia.
but it seems that the other 914/6 that hamiltons brought in was the one that was converted here in the distributors workshop. this one arrived at the docks in rhd form.
thats come to light. brian when he owned it was trying to get to the bottom of that.

along with the 4 speed box. brian thought hamilton might have done the 4 speed box here but when brian asked him, hamilton said "no, i ordered it from the factory that way".

it looked a little different in 1991. it had steelies and hubcabs. the interior had no backpad but was finished more or less like a GT. along with little individual racing buckets and a centre pull 356 handbrake under the centre of the dash. the dash was a hand built and hand finished item that was a perfect mirror of lhd. it had all the mods on the firewall and petrol tank for rhd. the conversion was perfectly executed to a very high standard. there remain questions over where this conversion was done. it was not done here it seems. (and before anyone pipes up, no its not a crayfords conversion car).

the car came to australia via the japanese dealer in the early 1970s. probably late 70/early 71. someone else active in 914s has the dates on the paperwork.

i think its a job for the director of the porsche museum this one.

everyone connected with it is just about dead or in a nursing home with dementia.

except one of the mechanics who worked on the conversion of the 914s that was done in the dealer workshop here.
he is still around.
he says only one was converted here.
the other one.
which is noted as burgundy in this article.
but isn't. its metallic red. it was always said it got written off in the late 70s.
but recently its been put back on the road again after a full restoration.
the interior is quite different, dashboard and other details. i've seen the photos.
they are notably different conversions to right hand drive.

anyway. its got a 4 speed box.
not a sporto.
i have driven it.
and we knew enough about 914s 30 odd years ago, brian and i to know there were only 5 speeds and even back then, that sportos might have been a non existent myth.
(turns out there were a handful hey!). so the question got asked to alan hamilton straight away. whats the story with the 4 speed box.

if you look closely at the photo i have posted you will note that the car is in J spec.
those side warts are J spec lenses. it had the right hand drive headlight set up for Japan.

if you do ever get around to checking that VIN number i bet you find out the car was built originally to japanese specfication.
how and where it got converted to RHD remains unanswered.
but it could be that it is the unicorn. ie done at the factory post production.
its purpose may have been to be a driveable demonstrator for the japanese distributor and then the australian distributor. its very early on in the whole show.
1971.
the first crayfords cars never made it to here until 1974.
there was nothing earlier than these two distributor owned cars- both 6s.

ps

re above.
for all you porsche badge nuts.
that badge on the bonnet was also there in 91 when brian picked it up.
he did not put it on.
so maybe the aussie distributor did?


there is an anecdote i have about the second owner, who i did meet a few years ago.
he may be dead now.
he was an aquantance of a semi retired architect i know.
he was still frightened of the car 40+ years later.
he only owned it for a short time.
he used to be a regular up at the alpine ski resorts here back in the day.
always had porsches.
he spun it on a bridge that was followed by a notorious curve all the old blokes chuckling over the beers knew about but is long gone.
he said he could always take the bridge and the curve flat stick in his 911.
so he did the same thing in the 14 and reckoned he was lucky to be alive.
when it stopped spinning he was still in the middle of the road with the enigine stalled.
afterwards he remarked it was the slowest drive up to the mountain he ever did.
even slower than his hotted up beetle he had owned in the early 60s.
he said he had a fender bender in the city shortly afterwards and went straight to hamilton instructing him to order a new 911 and to take the 914 back for a trade in.
he was over it.
told me it was dangerous and i should think twice about mine.

I got an eye roll when someone asked for some tech specs and some procedure and I provided a link to the factory shop manual and gave a page number.

Nah. It's a good thing. I included myself in that comparison. But I can't help but think that Sheriff Taylor's first name was.........................Andy!

Yea... but I can't imagine Andy Taylor with a red mohawk.

Have to be more specific.... some of the books out there have bad info too.