Over 34 years of ownership, the worst thing I personally have ever done to my poor 914 is pictured here!

Can anyone recognize the abomination? I WAS, afterall, still a punk kid when I bought the car in '72. Pic is from '73.


Can anyone top this?

fake fuchs hubcaps ...

Andy

Nice JC Whipme hubcaps.

BenT

Your stupid trick is reversible and forgivable Pat. These guys thought their 914 could fly:

Need I say more....

Andy,

You mean they weren't "real" Fuchs hubcaps? That damned J C Whitney screwed me out of 19.95!

They were about the thickness of aluminum foil - a heavy breath dented them, but I thought they were cool, for about a month. Kids!

Hey, I actually like that rail looking thing. You can still dress it up with a differnt body starting with Faux Fuch coverettes. I'll bet you can improve on those hub caps my putting spinners on them.

BenT

Some of the stupid things I bought or did to my new 914 back in 1976:

-Told the dealer to remove those ugly Fuchs forged allows and swap them with the Mahle cast or I will not buy the car. Last year I spent a ton to get 5 NOS Fuchs! I can't believe I thought these were ugly!
-Installed a CB radio with a huge antenna that looked like a some type of vegetation from the lowlands.
-Installed a loudspeaker under the right front fender to yell at people !!!???
-using the hole for the coat hook on the rollbar/back window I mounted a speaker so I could hear the CB while driving. That did wonders to my left ear listening to Pffffffffffffft, Pffffffffffft, Pffffffffffft at full volume.
-Installed a Monza four tip exhaust- quickly went back to the original
-Installed adjustable Konis all around- even quicker they were replaced by Boges since at the softest setting if felt like the dash was going to break off in my lap on every bump.
-Sanded off the chrome trim on the Blaupunkt radio faceplate.

Dave

Breaker, breaker good buddy....


I never did understand that CB radio craze.........

It was the forerunner of Nextel. Obnoxious to everyone around, and pretty much pointless. I did it! Not with my 914, but with a 924. You need some sort of entertainment with a 924!

Welllll::: One of my parts cars from the past had a later dealer installed
VPC A/C system.....
IN A 72 1.7!!!!!!!! (what was left to power the car)???

The second worst thing was to park next to that 65 Pontiac land yacht with the swing away 8.5 foot door that weighed enough to roll your car over if a strong wind was behind it, propelling it into the front fender of the teener. The fuchs fakers......well you learned from it didn't you ? Thats good for something..............

dude, those hubcaps were awesome!!!

me?
um.. everything... lol
but 'I' like it.. lol

Oddly enough, the Pontiac was never a problem. Only ding from a car I ever got was from a '70 Camaro (with the point in the center of the door). Almost cut right through my sheetmetal. I DID get even. The Pontiac belonged to my buddy accross the hall & knew how to respect a person's car. His other car was a '69 Orange 302 Camaro.

If he doesn't still have the 302 Camaro, I'll bet he wished he had still hung with you and kept it. Like apparently you did with the teener.

Nuts how those cars have appreciated in value due in large part to the "Auction" according to Barrett- Jackson---the so called authority on all things Muscle....especially if its owned by Craig or one of his minions. Great deal if he likes Hemis or COPO cars, or maybe a Shelby. But not so good if its a little off the chart and not really to their liking....

The thing is.....are there enough of the whales bidding on all this stuff, some of which has been drug out of a barn with holes the length of the car, gone rotisserie resto, OR......ahem......RESTO-MODDED, because there is nothing else to do with a clapped out rag-bag, with no title and "bad" genes; to remember what happened back in '89? Apparently not, either that or someone's got a real tap into the money tree of life and is giving it away to all his buddies. To use for currency at B-J. Put me on that friends "buddy"-list.

It's gonna be called a market correction and when that happens........??????

That broadax fell fast and furious 15 years ago, and the car hobby reeled in the throws of a death spiral for years.

Nice pic by the way...its sure fun looking thru all the memories of yesteryear isn't it ?


mrgreenjeans

I once put chrome reverse rims on the back of my first car.....a 10 year old -58 Impala Sport Cpe., with 348 and turboglide. Then put a set of Keystone Magnesium rims in black and grey on the front.

I thought it looked trick, as that's what we all did in 68, and 69.

That wasn't as lame as my friend who bought a 69 R.Runner new, and removed the ultra righteous Magnum 500 style road wheels and put some cheesy variant on. Picked out at the local Kame-A-Part store, on sale.
Or another friend who took his 69 Mustang Super Cobra Jet w/ 4 speed and traded it on a six cyl. Chevy II back in 72, because he was getting married and needed a family car. ( It was a 2 door post for crying out loud....what's family about that ?) Oh, yeah , now I remember....it was brown with a beige vinyl roof, so it DID fairly well scream "family" sedan in the era of Psychedelia.

On the Impala, I also took out the O.E chrome Kleenix box mounted since new, out from under the dash, becasue it may interfere "with the Mood" some Sat. night....(never happened anyway). BUT, I did keep it in the trunk and its still a part of the car today !

At least I didn't tub the car and make it into a loser drag car......like some had happen to them. 4000 lb cars do NOT make good drag cars, let alone tubbed 4000 lb drag cars.

mrgreenjeans

Putting in a regular battery and not an Optima when my Optima source dried up in the late 80's. That began the battery tray rust. And on the day after I put the regular battery in, my Konig driver seat had a mysterious hole in the cloth. ACID!!!

Losing control of the top and denting the quarter panel.

But the worst was during a month long vacation, putting a front sway bar in my 74 2.0 along with a beautifully rigged electric washer system with a 911 pump, new shocks, new tires and then TOTALLING the car the very next day!!!!!!!

Paul

I was just thinking today that I'd love to tell somebody about this, but was afraid to...and then this perfect little thread came up....


I bought my 914 1.5 years ago, found out that I had to replace the driver's side floor pan underneath the seat. Learned how to weld, and after some practice I cut out the floor pan and welded the new one in (and did a pretty damn good job to, I must say). Then I decided that I didn't like how the seat wasn't centered behind the wheel and decided to weld the new seat brackets over a little so that the seat would be centered.

All was good until I looked under the car today and noticed that the floor pan is bulging downward where I welded the outer seat bracket to the floor pan. This is of course because I didn't weld the bracket over the reinforced part of the pan, but just inside of it. What the hell was I thinking?!! Now I've got to figure out how to reinforce this area so it doesn't sag more (the sheetmetal is only bulging downwards about 1/4" now). I don't want to cut the seat brackets out and re-weld as I like where the seat is, and I REALLY welded them things in so it would be a HUGE pain in the ass to go that route. Plus any re-welding will mean removing the 3 coats of por15 on the top of the floor pan and also the rubber undercoating stuff I sprayed on the underside of the pan.

When I was in the Army in '69 (stationed in Kansas at the time), I went to a chebby dealer in Topeka & scope out a '69 307 4-speed Camaro. Don't remember the specific price, but it was about $2500 (new). Couldn't get credit because I was 22 & making $89/month from the Uncle. But I do remember a 302 in the corner of the showroom, with a $3500 package on it! Made it just under $7000 in '69 money.

The neighbor I referred to had one one of these - bright orange, no mufflers - just a series of resonators down both side. You could hear him coming for 2 miles! Had to carry the factory papers with him because he was stopped regularly for ultra-loud pipes. It was the real deal! Think what that's go for today! Unless he kept it I'll bet he's bashing his head against the walls daily. By the way - that was a dangerous car to drive!

Lots of people through the years noted that the drivers' side seating was a little "off camber". Guess we know why.

I don't know, is it really an issue? Fresh metal, comfort, 1/4 inch bulge?

As long as it doesn't get worse I'm ok with it. (The seat still fits in the backpad if pushed back all the way, but just barely). However, I get into the car very carefully and expect it to get worse over time.