Spotters guide: There are other differences, but here some basics to help you recognize them from a distance.

The factory valence has this part number molded proud into the inside center surface, aftermarket does not. The numbers are about 1/2 in high, near the bottom edge. The VW symbol is dead centered on the valence. This part is NLA. The inside surface is raw white plastic, not painted.

The factory valence has 2 metal angled support braces and hardware, aftermarket does not.

The orange valence in these photos is factory, the black one is aftermarket. There are several different aftermarket companies making these so called 'LE spoilers' and each one is different, this black one I show is only one of several styles. Look at the photos for differences in details and quality.

I have not seen a believable aftermarket unit, but I would not think these would be hard to copy perfectly. Can anyone here mold these and repro an excellent copy? I bet there are some LE owners who would want good repros, only about 25% of the surviving LE cars still their have factory spoilers.

Front corner view

Side view: Note the plumb vertical edge and parallel width (top and bottom edges)

Wheel well edge:

Are the factory originals molded plastic? All of the A/M LE spoilers that I've seen are fiberglass and that would explain part of it. Some things are possible with molded plastic that are very difficult with fiberglass, for instance the dimples in the ends.
A mold for an injection molded plastic part runs around 10K and up, a fiberglass mold can be made by a bonehead in his garage in a weekend.
I think that the glass spoilers may very well have been made by people that didn't actually have an LE spoiler to copy, just pictures and a bumper to work off of. I've built a grand total of 3 fiberglass molds and I'm sure that I could build a better part than the black one in your picture.

oem, plastic
Steve

The originals are fairly thin, only about 1/16 - 3/32 in. thick (wheel well edge and attachment points are thickned), in a hard, dense resin plastic, fiber-reinforced, and molded smooth on all surfaces. The valence seems slightly more brittle than fiberglass, but it would be subtle if at all. They do look injection molded. Would injection molding be easier/faster than laying up fiberglass, when the factory made them in production quantity? How do they made corvette body parts - injection molds?

Could a good mold just be made from the original part using a mold release? At least the outer surface and the proportions would be exact, the inside really is not that important or visible.

I just remembered I had a photo from another car I used to own with a different style aftermarket valance...this puppy has 'wings'...sorry its the best photo of this valence that I have.

Oh, Grashopper I like your wings!
Steve

That car was a blast, I miss it.

Nice hopper!

I would be very interested.....

Jeff, thanks for pointing the differences out....

-- Rob

The one I have on my car is an OE piece and was originally
cracked up before James Houge (Morph) of
Appearance & Performance fame repaired it and then I believe
created a buck to reproduce accurate copies from it.
He (they Heidi) have it listed on thier store site.
I havent seen one of thes copies though.
Maybe he'll chime in.

One of the other specific details on the OE piece is that the tabs
formed into the bottom edge where the brackets mount have
square holes for a very small carriage type bolt (pictured above).



R.

Thanks for posting about James' spoiler Rich. I have not seen his version either, but I hope he will take some good photos of the details of his repro spoiler and post them here.

I thought mine was A/M as it looks more like the bottom pics, but it was definitely injection molded. It was broke and I modified it when I rebuilt it so I don't think I could tell now.

Mine is aftermarket and used primarily as a cone repositioning device.....with the scars to prove it...pix too.

'bout halfway down on the left...

http://www.914ap.com/products.php

It would be great to see the wheel well edge detail.

Hi,
I have a factory LE spoiler on my 76 car that came from the factory with it. It had a small amount of damage on a corner so I bought a copy to put on till I get around to fixing it. The copy that you show is a good copy as copies go but it is a copy. My wife could not tell.

As I have been in the plastic biz for 34 years and 3-d molding of polyesters as one of my specialties over the years I have thought on this. The factory part could have been cast under vacuum or pressure. When you close up a part that big the tooling starts to cost a lot compared to fiberglass layup tooling. The precision that you get is dead nuts on but cost a lot.

Please excuse my spelling as am in Hong Kong now at the airport going to my factory in China to celebrate the New Year. I do not do this work now. I have done work before making special 2 part hard urethane foam material for rifiel stocks in closed molds made of filled urathane. You bolt the two parts of the mold after you wax it and pour the expanding foam material. If fills up the mold and builds pressure giving you a primo 3-d part. You just need to experiment on how much material to put in so you do not over fill it. Some foam expand 2 to 1, 3 to 1 so on. You need to Ck with the supplier.

Bob

This is an aftrmkt item manufactured and/or distributed by "Karrousel" in the mid-to-late '70s. I installed it on my '70 in 1977 and it's been on the car since.

Ahhh, is this the same company?

Here is the VPC version:

Bob, this sounds like a great way to cast parts in detail. Is the product for the part the same as rigid polyurethane foam? If you used it for rifle stocks, it must be pretty durable.

Click to view attachment
is yellow inside ther is original?

There's one on german eBay right now ...

Porsche 914,914-6 original Frontspoiler

does anybody know if this front spoiler is the same as for the M471 cars?

did the M471 spoiler has a different part number?
if so - who knows the number?

Gustl

I you are talking about the 914/4 M471, then this should be the correct spoiler.
I wonder what the ZPW part looks like.

made from abs about 3 mm thick, had end caps glued in plcae(missing in end photo) batteries died I can take more pics.

Jeff, the spoiler was a "Karrousel" item that I got from Automotion back in the '70s.
Here's an old pic (pre-resto) showing the backside.

Paul

well, that's pretty clear to me

I was thinking about the 914-6 M471 cars