I guess it's no big deal, BUT:

I removed the bottom nee pad to remove the steering column part to replace the shaft bearing and noticed that the dash was painted orange but the car is malaga red and it's the original paint so why is the dash orange? It does have a flat black over the orange where it might show around the edges but up under there it's orange. Course there's not really a lot of red on the firewall either. Does that mean maybe someone changed the dash and I wonder why. I haven't found any evidence of a wreck yet. I really think most of the interior has been replaced because it seems too nice to be original. Although the car only has about 80k on it. The upper dash pad does have one small crack up on the top, where the dash starts to go up over the gauges so thats why I thought it was all original.

Has anyone else found a different color dash metal from the car?

Oh yeah one other thing: The steering column and wheel looks like a 72 super beetle that I have but they DO NOT use the same steering wheel adapter. The horn wipers on the bug look the same but there are two and the 75 914 I have has only one. That is no biggie but the shaft is the same along with the splines and bearing parts. The horn ring on the back of the wheel is the same. Thats all great except the shaft is about a inch longer so the bug adapter, the grant 3565 for example will not go all the way down to meet the column. The bearing and sleeve will interchange for sure. Also the 914 wheel although it looks like a bug wheel is a lot better made. The horn ring part on the bug is plastic where the 914 is metal. Also I didn't think to try the turn signal assembly to see if it would interchange.

If you do a search you will find that the underside of the dash has little to do with the color the car was painted at the factory. Some other interesting information is usually written on the underside of the dash.

Eric

The dash subframes were painted separately from the car and they grabbed whatever was lying on top of the pile for each car.

I don't think i've ever seen a 914 with a matching dash subframe ...
Andy