Chk this out. According to Jeffs Chart its the last known to be built

Whats the VIN on this Rich? It looks to be 16594 or is it 16694? Can you email me a cleaner scan? bowlsby@aol.com

So whats the story behind this COA? Do you have a new Creamsicle? What else is available on the car...photos? Owner info?

Whatever the VIN, it looks like a great find...it will be the 120th 914 LE car on the Registry.

Man that's cool Rich. One of these days I need to see that car. We need a club saying. Greenpeace has "Save the whales" maybe we should use "save the VoPo". Seriously, I'm glad you're trying to save it. It looks like you have a little bit of history.

it says 16694.

Congratulations. Wow, this is interesting. The COA says that it was produced the first of April. From the data this would suggest that about 250 cars were finished that day. Not sure if this is entirely accurate or not.

I would like to know the chassis and transmission numbers. The VIN extends the range by almost 100. That is quite the jump. Rather few and far between at the end. It really makes me wonder if the run was limited to 1000 units. It would almost seem that they were building to order /request. If these were "loss leaders' as has been suggested, then it would make sense to build them in a group. Building to order is less effiecient, thus more costly.

From 15332 ( the first non-LE in the range) to this car I now have 15 cars that are non-LE's within the range. There is one other car, the Brazilian aubergine car, near the front of the range, but it is a ROW car not North American production. I expect they had to have some ROW production during the time frame. I doubt they could ignore other markets for two months just to focus on the LE.

DaveP
LE Historian

I also thought that these cars were ordered by the Dealers to pull people in. I remember them being show on the lots on those elevated stands, for "Special Cars". So as you drove by you noticed it, "Wow, whats that!" and came into the lot.

Geoff

Yep, that is the "loss leader" strategy. Put up something special to draw the crowds. These were loaded in a sense but sold for a regular price. Especially the black, because that was an extra-cost option paint, so the savings on it were substantial.

DaveP

I assume that you are going by the VIN numbers of other cars that have "completed on" dates known? I don't think the cars were all completed in numerical VIN order; I recall reading that there were a number of ways that a car could be pulled out of the production line and set aside for a while. Generally for re-working something that did not meet QC specs, or possibly just for a more thorough inspection or what have you.

--DD

Well, I have 4742916447 listed as having a DOT decal showing 04/74. Its chassis #, 1419544, translates as week 14. There being about 4 weeks to a month, that puts the chassis being built about the second week of April. Now 4742916694 is 247 VIN's past that car. Also 4742914936 is shown as 02/74, so to be generous it could be that March production of all 914's was 1511. With 23 production days in March that would mean an average of 66 per day. So how did they get 4 days worth of production on April 1? An April fools day joke no doubt. Maybe they only worked one day a week. Or they could have worked only one week per month on the model, then changed to something else. What else was Karmann running on the line during the same period? Surely 914 production was not the only model there, there was not enough volume to justify an exclusive line.

The earlier one could have been pulled out of the line (for whatever reason). Then it was inspected/worked on/whatever, and eventually put back into the line at a later date. That could account for the large range of numbers.

There are other possible explanations... Like typos or accounting errors in a date stamp or a ledger. And the fact that it's the beginning of a month makes me wonder if there was some sort of oddness going on with end-of-month stuff.

I think it would be more correct to say that "Cars separated by 250 VIN numbers were completed that day", rather than "250 cars were built that day."

Oh well, it is still an interesting thing to see!

--DD

I just had a hunch, and check some other data. It seems all COA's will say the first of the month, probably due to either lack of record keeping or lack of digging. They probably only checked the DOT month code and placed the date on the first of the month. Too simple.

Maybe some of the COAs would fall into this category. But there are a few COAs on the LE website that have Birthdates other than the 1st of a month.

You may be correct Jeff. Are the ones with a proper date older COA's; going by preparation date? They seem to change formats quite often.

Some of the COAs old and recent, have birth dates on the first day of a month, others have a date during the month. Several COAs do not indicate a birth date.

This is where it gets weird, I thought something was fishy when I saw my COA for 14536:

My Chassis number is 072, translated, this chassis started production in the 7th week, 2nd day of week (Tuesday, February 12th, 1974).

My COA states 'Birth date/Delivery date 2/01/1974'.

So my LE was 'born' (I have thought that term meant completed?) 11 days before the chassis number was assigned. Now that must be sloppy accounting. You must be on to something...the dates assigned on the COAs are, or at least can be, arbitrary.

German precision...I own 3 german cars currently... <_<

So Rich, do you own LE 16694? What is its status? Photos? Is this the car that melted?