Recently Jell Bowlsby and I were contacted about a potential LE car. In my 20 years of research I never thought it was possible for such a late car to be an LE. However, the owner has the COA, the window sticker and a bill of sale. Well, you can't ask for more documentation than that. As far as I'm concerned the window sticker is the definitive proof I want to see. On the other hand, this car raises even more problems. Previous knowledge was that the run of LE's was done in February, March and early April. Even 15 years ago I knew that the run of, supposedly 1000, LE cars spanned more than 1000 VIN's and in fact spanned at least 2000 VIN's. Until recently I had not found non-LE cars within the then-known range, and thus supposed that the extra cars within the range were for non North American markets. Then a few cars started to show up that were definitely not LE's within the range, but most of them are indeed late in the range. These cars were usually 1.8 engines. The general range of LE production was from 14348 to 16760. I believe that 14348 is very close to the beginning since car 14345 is a 1.8 as are many cars immediately preceding it. This puts the begining of production at about the seventh week of 1974, thus in mid February. I have almost half of the known LE's built in February according to the decal on the drivers door post, and with chassis #'s indicating a Friday in week 9 of 1974.

Okay, enough of the preamble, what is so special about the recent find? The VIN is 4742921331, and remember that the final VIN of 1974 Model Year is 4742921370.

Well then, this would mean that LE production went up to the end of 1974 MY production, or almost so. This car has a decal showing 07/74, July production! And it has a chassis number showing 28th week of the year. It also has the sail panel vinyl not seen on any other LE. This adds about 4600 VIN's to a range that was only 2412 long. I did not mind the incremental widening of the range as new cars were discovered outside of the initial range I had found, that was to be expected. However, after all these years of research we find one that can be verified that far out of the range IS mindboggling.

What does this mean? For starters, it may be a rather unique car. Let us suppose that a dealer chose to order that particular color combo on an otherwise similarly equipped model late in the model year. I doubt the factory would turn it down. Note the sail vinyl though. The holes for the trim were most likely drilled before painting. Thus, so late in the year and with a new chassis coming up very shortly there were probably a very limited selection of 1974 MY bodies available from which to choose. You cannot very well choose to do much but to add the vinyl and add the trim to fill the holes.

What I would ask of our members is to send me VIN, chassis, paint code, date code and engine type (2.0 or 1.8) for all cars from 4742914000 on up. Jeff Bowlsby's LE Registry web page is here:

http://members.rennlist.com/914_canam/914CanAmRegistry.htm

If your car is already listed, please double-check the info. Accuracy is everything.
If you think you may have an unlisted LE, please contact Jeff or myself.
If you have a car that is definitely not an LE, please send me the particulars.

This is a bit of a new adventure, and I'm trying to hang on to the tail of this twister.
A picture of the car that confounds us:

Could it be Dave, that like all the other car companies, Porsche just was trying to clean out the left over spare parts inventory and assembled a LE to do so.

Does the owner have the order form for the car so that you could verify that this car was ordered this way? You never know they could have just got this as part of thier allotment of 914's?

Very interesting news indeed.


Are you sure it wasn't orginally white and green

Nope, not a grasshopper thank goodness.
No order sheet, I don't think anyone has seen one of those in 30 years.
I doubt it is a purging of inventory directly, BUT the LE is supposed to be a limited run of cars, and is supposed to be a run of 1000. Suppose they didn't make the full run of 1000 during the main run in April, perhaps they did try to finish up the 1000 at the end of the year. We may never know, however I hope that people will respond to this thread and help us find a few more that may shed more light on the situation.

Todd, it did get sold by Cronins in Cincinnati, your neck of the woods.

Dave, unfortunately I don't have any further info on these cars, but there are more LEs/GTs with sail panel vinyl ...

german one

other german GT

Dave is that car supposedly original or restored? First thing that catches my eye is the stripes (aside from the sail vinal) which according to Jeff are not exactly correct. Oh! and the Passenger mirror.

well known german GT "100,000"

Yes, the car has been 'restored' to some extent. At one time it even had Fuchs, but is now back to the original LE rims. New negative stripe had to be made I believe. Not too sutre about all those sail vinyl pictures Gustl. I wish we had VIN's to go with each of them. And also know how original the cars are. The GT's are another matter, similar to, but not the same as kind of thing. As far as I know, there was no limiting number put on the GT's. On the other hand, who is to say that They actually built the 1000 LE's they said they would. They may have made less or perhaps more.

so, just to clarify, the number 1000 was *only* for the US and did not include the ROW LE/GT/SL ???

Andy

PS: this one is odd as well, euro (austria?) car, no bumper tits, no engine grill letters, no vinyl, but US spec sidemarkers ...

wait, is that the car in japan?

Andy

Yes Andy, I believe that is the Japanese SL model.
The 1000 Limited was for North America. Canada basically had the same cars, but sometimes we had our own Owners Manuals and so on.

That Creamsicle above is in Kansas, its VIN 15650 on the Registry. I would have to look, but there may be more LEs with vinyl, but very few if any at all. I always figured the vinyl was put on by a PO. No way to tell if 15650 is original without close inspection.

NEWS FLASH

Do we know that the newly found Creamsicle has original targa vinyl? Its WS does not indicate it. Compare that to the 11 other WS on my Collectibles website for 73-76 and nearly everyone lists the vinyl roll bar as std. or N.C. I would think the WS would show the Vinyl as N.C. if was original to this car.

I have a customer that has a 1974 2.0 he has had the car since 1984. the car has the Porsche 914 2.0 emblems on the engine grill, And it has a LE after the 2.0 He said that when he purchased the car it was black with yellow bumpers, bottom stripes and yellow mahle wheels. He hated the color scheme so in 1989 he had the colr changed to black and silver. I looked the car over and there are traces of yellow paint showing through the old re-paint. he said that the wheels had gotten bent so they were changed. it has euro marker lights and satin black trim instead of thenromal stainless. it has every indication of being a bumble bee, But the Vin # shows a later date then what the known production run would have been. With this story, it is conclusive that There were possible randon LE cars produced at later dates. he has sent off to porsche for a COA. This is very interesting, He wants to sell me the car So I might have to look deeper into this matter. Also a question that could arrise is maybe the car coming from Porsche as a stock 2.0 and the dealer doing the LE upgrades and selling it new as a LE? hMMMMM.

Hi Michael...Can you tell us more about this car? VIN? Photos? Owner contact info? Or have the owner contact me at bowlsby@sbcglobal.net

If its an authentic LE, maybe its already on the registry, if not I would be happy to include the car on the registry.

The COA should confirm whether its authentic. Any chance he has a window sticker?

Hi Jeff, Im Michael. I am the owner of a custom body and paint shop here in Oklahoma. I am the one that restored and sold David Olson the Phoenix Red Mahle wheels. This is a long time customer of mine. I have known about this car since 1991 when I met him. I remember way back then him talking about the car being Black with yellow wheels bumpers and striped and how he hated it. This was a long time ago so at that time 1990 or so The Loud colors were being painted over and people were going monochromatic. The Vin is 4742905501 on his car about 7 years back I saw the yellow mahle wheels that he scraped out , he said they were all bent, so he trashed them. he put some 8 spoke wheels on the car and painted it black. it has a Vinyl roll bar satin black trim and other weird stuff. I will try to schedule a meeting with him so I can get some pics.

That would be great Michael, we appreciate your efforts. His VIN is 05501 for real? Dave Olsons car is 4600 VINs past the known range, this car would be nearly 8000 VINS before the known 914 LE VIN range. It would be essential to know also the numbers from both front and rear driver door jamb tags.

This thread makes me want to go buy an LE!

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=49643

Happy to help! PM me for the options on payment of commission.

OTTOS in Venice CA also has a bumblebee FS. It been completely restored. VIN 14700 on the 914 LE Registry.

Cool thread.

The one thing I find hard to believe as I read along is that any PO would actually go to the trouble of adding vinyl. I'm sure it's been done before and I'm a vinyl fan but if you think about what it would take to add it properly to a non-vinyl car when there's a fair percentage of people who didn't like it in the first place...

The trim molding along the top, sides, bottom and back. The vinyl itself. The efforts to adhere and trim etc.

It would be 'much' easier for me to 'buy' the fact that Porsche wanted to finish out a run of 1000 units and started using chassis that were already drilled for vinyl as Dave eludes to. Rather than fill and prep... just add the vinyl and push them out the door.

Been thinking some more about this vinyl.

DaveP is probably right and they simply 'converted' a standard 914 at the factory (its an LE on the COA), that would explain everything and is plausible.

Another scenario is that a PO added the vinyl later, where it originally did not have it. If the car did not have the vinyl, then the rear trim probably would have been black like all the other LE targa trim. This car has silver rear targa trim. If a PO was just going to add vinyl to make it look like all the other 914s, then how likely is it that he would have bought new silver trim too? Not likely I think. I think if he was going to add vinyl, he would have just reinstalled the black trim. So bottom line is, its reasonable to think that the vinyl and trim are from the factory because its silver. Would be interesting to see the texture pattern on the vinyl to confirm that its the factory pattern, just to be sure.

I also am intrigued by this thread. Seems to me that it is entirely possible that some enterprising 914 enthusiast could create an LE from a regular 914 and leave the vinyl in place. I am particularly thinking of a car produced several months before the "known era" of LE production. There is rumor of just such a cloned grasshopper (sans vinyl) existing somewhere in northern California. The car with an LE CoA is another matter.

We still need to get more info. The weather is nice, so no excuses. Data required from every 74 from 14000 on up please.