kind of related... i have an engine case # gaoooooo4. came out of a 73 car, explain that...

GA == 2,0 yes?
1973 first year for 2,0.

or perhaps I didn't understand the question...

looks liek the 4th 2.0L production case ever made ....

Andy

Hey guys i am pretty close to the first, just picked up the car form Chogokin.

11/69, and i assume #610

nice Tag !!! hope the rest of the car is as cool. When you clean the paint residue off that sticker, ( assuming that ), try using some 3-M Imperial handglaze----the tan stuff that John Paterek recommends . It will work wonders and be safe on the vinyl tag. Just use a fair amount, keep it from getting too warm to the touch and with a small piece of cotton cloth, or cloth diaper, use a swirling hand motion. The rag will begin to cleanse the vinyl , and that dude will come out Spankin' !

Any thing else more caustic, and it could be a gonner....

Show us some more pix !

mrgreenjeans

Forgot to note.....lift often and make sure none of the dark lettering is coming off too. That would suck.

And the delivery book for this car shows a delivery date of 01 April 1970. Way to call them, Dave

Dave----

I remember having a conversation about this issue with a local Nord Stern and national PCA concour judge, from MPLS. named Corey Johnson. You may know him from PCA events, He has a top flight sixer in black/black that has won numerous shows.
The thoughts entertained and related to me at that time were that Karmann brought over bodies to the factory as they were needed, some from the front of the lot, from the side, back, what ever, not really spending a great amount of time in keeping everything straight and linear in a numerical sort of way. Explaining why there is such a jumping around in sequence....is this the deal, or has there been more research and sound data pertaining to this around now?

This was a discussion we had nearly 20 years ago at the Afton Event down Twin Cities way, I do believe.
Any clarity on this subject would be greatly appreciated.
mrgreenjeans

Very cool, my car was also delivered on 01 April 1970 914-6 #41

Right here in sunny California

Bob

Bob,
The 914 was sold to a leasing company? In 1970? Talk about being ahead of the curve!

My dad was leasing cars way before that. I remember a 63 Chevy and a 67 Cougar XR-7 that I paid off the leasing Company $500 to buy it at lease end for my graduation present. (My dad made me work a little for it) That was in 71 so I guess my dad was getting 4-year leases back then. Blue, blue leather with a blue top.

Bob

Bob, I really need the chassis number and paint code from 0041. Carefully look at the paint code on the Karmann badge. 0033 has what appears to be 29 / 29. No idea why the code is doubled. Chassis # is in the rear trunk floor in front of the lock, should be 1300xx (#0033 was 130008) You might want to see if there is a similar # on the underside of the dash (it should have an extra '0' in it to designate the year).

As far as the chassis # vs VIN # sequencing, my hypothesis is that the bodies were welded up, and assigned a chassis/body # in sequence before they were painted. The Karmann badge would be installed after painting, then they were generally warehoused until a body of that color was required for the final assembly line. I suspect the VIN was assigned soon after beginning final assembly since the VIN tag on the windshield frame would be difficult to install after the glass is in place. We see photos of the assembly line, and the glass is in place rather early on. The chassis/body number can be well out of sequence with the VIN, or they may be sequential. I agree that there was little regard paid to keeping the chassis/body # in sequence with the VIN #. It does happen, but only rarely. More likely it was last in first out. It would be fascinating to get factual data from an assembly line worker.

One of my customers just bought #11 and is restoring it so that would be the first 914-6 off the line.

Bob, it seems you have a very early car. Any thoughts about bringing it back to the original color vs. the gemini blue?

Dave, I will get you all of this but you need to give me some time as it is on the lift next door. I have ordered the paperwork from Porsche 3 weeks ago so that will give us some ideas.

Eric, I know you had a nice yellow 914-6 car before.. I no not mind yellow but I love Metallic blue and Cork. When I put the wide body on it changes it anyway and with all the mods done to this car it is not even the same engine case it came with. My thought is for me why not have what I really want in color. I am not going to enter this car in shows for originality. You have seen the Metallic blue 916, they sent it back to the factory and had the car repainted that color.

Bob

Veddddy interesting stuff here. Remarkable.

Little did Hans and Gunther know , when they traipsed out to retrieve another body on the trolley buck from a corner of the yard....that they could be conceivably creating so much discussion thirty five years later over some such silly thing as NUMBERS.

After all, they were only concerned with getting the stinkin' job done, and making another run out back to get another body in white to put on the assembly line.

That and maybe thinking about the nice little bier hall girl

down at the "Eagles Nest" getting ready to spread around a few more for her customers at the end of shift.

Hans and Gunther are probably somewhere going:




and here we are:




What a world !!!!


this is GREAT

Here is another tidbit concerning chassis numbers, there is at least one 1970 914/6 with a 1971 body number.

I've got #31. Dave, sorry I haven't gotten back to you with the paint codes, I am still trying to get the Karman badge from the PO (he claims that he stored them somewhere before he started restoring it.) The VIN is stamped in the usual place up front but also has the VIN stamped in the rear passanger side wheel well. The car came with a funky wiring harness that has some additional connectors for testing on it that looked to be factory. The front fender had no seam between them and the windshield panel. So far that all that I can tells that is different with this car.


Dan

It is time to get more data from you fellows. I'd particularly like to learn more from each 1969 production car. Even more so from 9140430011. Eric?

I'll have to look at my VIN when I get home...it was built in '69 with a number around 1400.

I've actually had my hands on the very first 914 off the production line. Its sitting in the VW museum, AutoHauz, in Wolfsburg, Germany. I have a picture of it in a book I bought at the museum. I'll scan it and post it here. No one was around so I reached in and popped open the engine lid to check it out (my buddy with me thought we would get kicked out and ran off!) The outside restoration looks good but I was really disappointed with the engine bay resto. This was back in March 2002.

Whoa, we need to learn more about that one!
We need to have someone go in to get more details, however we need the address for that.

At 1400 yours is definitely in 1969.

Dave

http://automuseum.volkswagen.de/sammlung.html

it helps if you spell "Autohaus" correctly ...
Andy

So how can we get detailed info on this 914? Anyone in the area that we know?

Erik's Great Pumpkin

# 1121 built Dec 1969

oh yeah guys, it runs and he is only 14.... eat your hearts out.

Remember that with the factory assigning vins they could have been assigned right off during production to track the progress of the car or since they already had the chassis number they might have assigned the VIN towards the end after the motor and trans were in and using the VIN to heirarchy the chassis,engine and Transmission numbers together. I agree with what was stated earlier that they picked the chassis's at random they were not tryoing to keep things in numerical order. even at the factory they could have a higher number chassis with a low VIN.. its all part of manufacturing.. I did it with electronics for 7 years..

1-70
47029002344 is in my garage
james

Somewhere around 4702902000 was the change from 12/69 to 01/70.
Can everyone update their replies with the body # and paint code from the Karmann badge please. Those numbers are very important to my research.

not getting outta bed to check my Karmann number or the trunk but I can tell you mine is pretty old from what I've been reading here....

VIN # 4702902950

Body Number 0259562

Paint Code L80E (thinking about having it repainted to the origional color)

now converted to a six

Andy,

I'm cajun...not german.

Any pictures of the 914 at the VW museum?

I don't have a scanner at the house but I found this link to look at the car. Its not "AutoHaus"...that was my mistake. It is the ZeitHaus at the AutoStadt. I did go the museum that Andy listed above right before the ZeitHaus, but it was closing for the day. I was upset because that is where I thought a 914 would be. We were vectored to the ZeitHaus which was still open since we drove the long distance and wanted to tour a car museum. Turns out I hit the jackpot!

The display by the car and the coffee table book I bought there both state that it was the first VW Porsche to come off the assembly line.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...ADBS_en___US236

As for my car, the VIN is 4702901167, so #1167.

So, I guess the answer to the orginal question is Volkswagen AG has the oldest 914...

From the link: "Made was the car of 1969-1975...." Gawd, I miss that.

Anyhow, back on topic.....Maj Tom, thanks for the linky to that museum Didja get the VIN on that red 914 ?


In addition to the past few responses, we'd like to humbly request that Loux951 (Tom), morph (James), and keske 968 add their repective VINs, color codes and chassis # to the 914 Info compilation that appears at the top, right side of the Forum page. We appreciate it, as we are trying to account for as many 914s as we possibly can. Thanks!


Paul

Thanks Tom. That car is awesome!

No problem, glad I could share that with the club. Unfortunately, I visited the ZeitHaus and saw this car almost 6 years ago in March 2002 when I was just starting my 914 craze...I didn't get the VIN number. Do we have a club member that lives in North/Central Germany that can go get it? Or maybe we can email someone at the ZeitHaus to take a picture of the VIN and other identification markings and send them to the club...

The car looks red in the pictures on the website, but it is actually orange. I have no idea if that is the original color...the info from the ZeitHaus can answer that.

I posted my car VIN on the the VIN site for the club. I need to get the other info from my car. I will also post the VIN of the parts car I junked, all the info of the one I'm about to junk, and the VIN of the one that was junked when I got the car in 2000.

that looks an awful lot like the car pictured in DGVWPB ...


and i thought those wheels weren't available until '74 ???
Andy

What appears to be the same car (and photo) also shows up in Brian Long's book Porsche 914 914-6.
Methinks that items like wheels, the dashtop (where's the center vent?), Porsche crest and gawd knows what else, might have been changed or "improved". These pictures bear some resemblence to the car shown below, described as a "prototype" 914.

I agree that it is likely the same car. Same color (Tangerine?), trim, rims, fog light grilles.
Now we need to know the VIN. Who can find out?

Tom, when you looked at the engine, did it have FI or carbs. I know one very early car had carbs.

If its the above two cars that are being compared, I think they are not the same vehicle. Driver side mirrors, interior color, windshield chrome trim are all different. I doubt a museum would change anything at all on a display vehicle, much less to this extent.

I think the ones we are comparing are the color photos of W0B-CD 555 from DGVWPB and this one at the museum:

I don't remember if the car had FI or carbs. I do remember being significantly disappointed in the quality of the restoration in the engine compartment. It looked bad... like a restoration was never attempted. It gave me the immediate impression that it was a poor restoration focused only for appearance in the ZeitHaus. That lends credibility to the theory that the car may have been "upgraded" for looks with the later steel wheels, no dash vent, hood crest, etc. I think I even noticed the porsche crest on the steering wheel. Didn't VW-Porsche 914s for Europe have the VW crest on the wheel?

Key to this dilemma is getting the numbers off the car. I am going to try and find an email address to someone at the ZeitHaus. Andy, I may need some help with translation if I find one. I'll PM you if that is the case. Thanks. I want to get some digital pics of the vehicle numbers...

Did anyone figure out where this car fits in the age base...I recall it had a mid 1969 build date on the door jam...got it stored away so i'll have to get to it to verifiy what month it was built in...BTW..it's a 4 with less than 22k orginal miles on it...still has the orginal Michelin skinny X's

It should be 11/69 production.
I do need full info on this car and any 914 you have access to. Please email it to me with photos when possible.

"M",
That VIN would place your car as the 3rd oldest /4 in our 914 listing. Please add the VIN to the 914 Info page that can be found at the top, right heading of the Forum pages. Also add the color (and code) and chassis # (both found on the Karmann plate on the driver's side door jamb) if you can. The build date, on the trailing edge of the same door jamb, would be useful information as well.

An early car like yours is very intriguing, and I'm sure I speak not only for myself, but others as well, when I say I'd really like to see pictures of this car, with detail photos showing the trunks, engine compartment and interior.

Paul

Assumed low production # aside, I'm beginning to question the original, authentic presentation of this 914. In addition to the above mentioned anomalies, I've not ever seen body-colored fog light grills, except when they became black later in the production cycle, and thus would match a black car.

Paul

They also say it is a water-cooled 4 cylinder boxer motor. NOT!

Got an email from Rene in Switzerland, he got the museum webmaster to correct the watercooling goof. Now to wait to find out if more info can be obtained from the museum; VIN etc...

currently there's a guy who sells official german documents from the following car

I mailed him a question about more infos and that's what I got:

47.0.29.00387
signal orange
2 times tranny exchange and 3 times D-Jet brain exchange until December 1976 (!!!)
this one ended up as a parts car in the 70ies ...

1st registration on November 25th, 1969 - Berlin, Germany

eBay #180207324728

Gustl

Are you saying 4702900387 no longer exists, except as that German spec document shown on eBay?

Paul

yes ...

Andy