More importantly, have the posts and pics describing this car been deleted?
If you know the story about this car please keep in in your hat.
I was just hoping to refresh my memory about a special car.

Regards,

Carlos

It is safe!


Click to view attachment

This is #4? The car found in a field?

https://bowlsby.net/914/Classic/914114.htm


https://www.flickr.com/photos/marc9146/albu...57623363833871/

Was this the 914 from the desert that got Brad in so much trouble ?
I would love to have this and restore to it former glory..
914/Alan

this is the first time I've heard of this car.


Oh, please continue this story...

A pre-production 6cyl that is now under camouflage is titillating!

Somebody got "in so much trouble" just adds to the intrigue.

"Found in a field", a holy grail car!

Nice little Christmas present!

Thank you cgnj for digging this back up!

This one SHOULD get brought back, regardless of cost...

I thought there was a thread on what happened to Brad and his 'somewhat sketchy acquisition' of the car, but a search in the WWW didn't come up with what I was searching for.

I'm sure there are some folks on this forum that know a lot more about it than I do

*Spoiler Alert* The only field was in the story not in what happened.

914114 in 2004

Click to view attachment

That's the old home after the "Brad affair". You should post a pic of it's new home. It would make me feel better knowing it's not still outdoors rusting away...

It is ...

Seriously?

True relic

Interesting how it has a hood badge.

You noticed that too...

So does that then prove 914's came with a badge from factory?
Matt

I believe I have a correct NOS left fender for the early cars. The shape is different at the seal to the cowl.

I would love to be part of the restoration of that car. There would have to be so many hand fabricated parts to make it right.

That looks like a rendering. Notice no rectangle side reflectors.

I can’t find the original website I pulled these from. It was a discussion on the prototype 914. These were associated with that article.
Possibly this chassis.

Proto:

The pictures don’t do the rust on that car justice. 914club.com. That story is another saga. Only 20 years or so…YIKES! Gray hair.

So, for those of us who are newer to the site, what is the story?

I think this was first discussed on 914club b4 the blowup. I believe that the was an reveal that discussed why this car was different in detail. I thought that after the split the sites were essentially the same. I never checked to see if the reveal/discussion thread was accessible here. For some reason I wanted to refresh my memory and could not find it.

So, my question is "the thread regarding to exam of the car gone or hidden. It's a good read. I don't want to unearth the drama regarding the car. If it is gone, that's history lost.

It all out there - use Google. Not my place to post links.

I’m more curious as to how this car exists, yet it hasn’t been restored properly. Worse yet, that it may still be rotting outdoors somewhere when we see original GTs at auction pushing 7 figures. Has to be the craziest thing ever!

@cgnj
It's not gone.
Its hidden, for reasons that should be pretty obvious to anyone who was around back then.

Btw., i was an "Expert Witness" at the trial ...

The things movies are made of ....

thanks all for posting, great details, just enough to pique

@sirandy Thanks
I recall 3 or 4 of the people that looked @ the car.
Thanks, I was hoping that the analysis of the car & what makes it special was saved somewhere. Maybe that piece will come to back to life.

Just some pictures. I remember this but what is with the - Prince Purple? -

Bob B

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Better that the story not be repeated

I personally think the car is cursed
It led to the end of 914 club
Broken friendships and jail
Caused nothing but harm to anyone connected

Better to be lost in time

Yes it was a weird time. But NARP and 914 world were born and the tech threads were still around.

It looked a whole lot dif than the 1969 magazine cover.

Yes but it was a prototype made and tested in Germany. I’d think that might have been added to get it here.

And that is the real challenge; one would have to be a real fabricator to restore the car correctly since basically all of the parts in it were early prototypes and not production panels or parts. With so much of the car rotting underneath, it would be difficult to determine what was original.

Hard to believe it's been 20 years since this all blew up. I remember the threads, the funny drawing plan to get the accused out of prison. I remember spitting whatever I was drinking out my nose I laughed so hard.

Lots of pre-production cars don't make it long. Sad to see after 20 years, this one isn't sitting in a museum fully restored for all to enjoy. It's certainly a piece of history.

I read all the old threads on club before they were deleted. I think you get a different point of view when you see it from a distance.

Did you see the latest BHCC thread? If that can be restored, so could this prototype.

Would love to know why it hasn’t been restored.

I touched that car. Still fell someway messed up in the head by it. let it be dead and locked away.

That sure was a fun WCR.

Without a $3-500K+ full on restoration this car will never be driveable or ‘perfect’. The other thought would be to simply clean it up and preserve it as an artifact. That in itself would be very cool for all to see. Some of the parts are very fragile such as the plastic lenses and heat distribution ducts under the cowl. Every part on it is one of a kind, hand made.

Better to stay far away from that car.

interesting read this thread.

i tend to agree with you mr. b.
whatever it is, it should be left in the state its arrived at.

curious remarks about it being cursed by some posters.
i can believe it.
a bit like king tut's tomb.
some things are best left alone or even forgotten.

i went digging on this website and i see that the idea of prototypes has come up before.
there was this fab photo from a post war euro jig saw puzzle posted here about two decades ago.

Click to view attachment

youze old timers on this website will know this one?
def a 4 proto.
911 mirror.
cowl fuel filler.
and the early indicator lenses as per the piech 8.
likely one of the 16 hand built protos from 1968.

there is a prototype pre production holden torana gtr-x currently for sale in north antartica at the moment. with all the talk of hoodoo i will be staying well clear of that.
(it too seems to be cursed as if it does not want to be completed but stay an abandoned artifact?)

oh and merry christmas.
its rained all day here today.
record rainfall for a christmas day since records were recorded.
ruined my normal 7.00 am run on deserted roads that i have been doing for the last 3 years in the 914. curses.

and yes to all the badge whores.
the protos seemed to wear a badge.
obviously VW put their foot down on that one after h nordhoff had his heart attack.

@wonkipop

Why do you say it's a /4?

my german genes speak to me sir a.

its a stab in the dark.
def vw hubcabs and trim rings and skinny vw tyres.
know them like the back of my hands.

and...........thats it.

also same thread i dug this up from that youze old timers were chewing the fat over,
had another set of photos that a german member had posted of a 4 proto.
and you can just see the badge on the hood on that one.
low res photo but the badge can just be made out.
(i think, unless a sea gull took a sh$t on it in around about the same spot).


Click to view attachment

The Jailbreak map was a classic!

A quick summary of some of the events around this car. (Mods, please feel free to delete or edit if I'm out of place here.)

914 114 was a prototype 914-6 that was supposed to be destroyed after testing. Instead, it was sold "out the back door" to someone who imported it to the US and "Federalized" it. The car was pre-production and had almost no parts in common with the production 914-6es.

Eventually it was found in a field in So Cal. Depending on who you ask, it was either stolen from or bought from that field. One of the founding members of the 914club board wound up with it. (914world is basically the successor to 914club; the details of that situation are even longer to recount.)

The car was brought to No Cal and a bunch of people got to look at it. It was even exhibited at a local swap meet that coincided with a 914club event.

The former owner (or rightful owner, again depending on who you ask) reported the car stolen, and a police investigation, arrest, and a trial followed. The results of that are murky to me, but the car was returned.

Due to neglect, the car was in really bad shape back then. Restoration would be borderline impossible due to the fact that almost everything on it is one- or two-of-a-kind. I don't think any body panel is identical to any stock 914--and you can see that the stock front bumper does not fit the recesses in the fenders very well. The bumper (and I think the other front corner of the car) were replaced due to collision damage some time in the past.

It's a sad and controversial story. I'd love to see the car restored properly, but I don't have the half-mil (or more) required to do so. As I told the cops when they interviewed me about it, "I'm sure the car might be worth $500K if it were restored--but it would cost at least that much to restore it."

--DD

Almost 20 years ago it was a rusty cobbled together pos. Much of it shared what would become the 914. Much of it not. If it was a rusty 70’ 4 parts car you would pass on it. Certainly not travel some distance to drag it out of field to tow it home. Now, the value is the story. It was great when all the cars fired and rev’d up at the venue. People were not happy. 914 owners

Sometimes the story is better than the real thing.