Write-up on the 914 at edmunds.com

[nine_one_4]

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=115751

914: 1970-1976

If there's no more legendary Porsche than the 550 Spyder, there's no model more derided than the 914. Almost a decade and a half after the relatively exotic 550 Spyder left production, the 914 was introduced as a more accessible and affordable Porsche.

The 914 emerged from a partnership between Porsche and VW with Porsche handling the design and development work, Karmann coachworks supplying the bodies and Volkswagen doing the final assembly in its Wolfsburg plant (the few 914/6s produced were finished at Porsche's Zuffenhausen facility). The idea was to use many of the components then being developed for VW's new (and now long forgotten) 411 and 412 models to build the sports car, including the engines. In fact the 914 was sold as a "Volkswagen-Porsche" in much of the world even though it was sold as a regular Porsche in the United States.

Whether the 914 was good-looking or not is open to argument, but it sure didn't look like any previous (or subsequent) Porsche. Every surface on the 914's body was flat: the doors, the hood lid, the deck lid and the roof. The car kind of looked like a pizza box with four wheels underneath it and a shoebox plopped atop it.

The 914's structure was a basic steel unibody with an A-arm and MacPherson strut front suspension and a set of trailing arms in the rear. The engine sat just behind the two-seat cockpit with a small trunk at the aft end and another small trunk in the front. All 914s were "Targas" in that they featured a removable roof panel that allowed sunshine in, similar to that used on the 911 Targa. The general design of the suspension was similar to the 911's, but the 914 used coil springs in the rear as opposed to the torsion bars in the contemporary 911.

The 1970 edition of the 914 came with a fuel-injected 1.7-liter version of VW's air-cooled overhead valve flat four rated at a modest 85 hp. It was backed by a five-speed manual transmission whose ratios could be hunted down and found…eventually. Still, in a year that also saw the introduction of the Datsun 240Z the 914 was impressive enough that Motor Trend named it as the magazine's first Import Car of the Year. "Sure it was one of the best-handling machines any of us had ever driven," wrote Motor Trend, "and no one faulted steering response or legroom, but the car underscores better than anything else the shift of automotive design influence out of America."

Underscoring design shifts or not, the first 914 wasn't too speedy. According to Motor Trend it took 12.4 seconds for the 914 to reach 60 mph and it completed the quarter-mile in 18.3 seconds at 75.3 mph. That's just bleak. But there was a solution on the way.

About three months after the four-cylinder 914 was introduced, Porsche introduced the 914/6 powered by the 911's 2.0-liter flat six making 125 hp and supported by a five-speed manual transmission. This was an entirely different beast: quick, agile and more able to exploit the midengine layout. Motor Trend measured a 914/6 accelerating from zero to 60 mph in 8.4 seconds and completing the quarter-mile in 16.1 seconds at 85.5 mph. That's roughly equivalent to the old 550 Spyder.

With the 914 still fresh on the market, revisions for the 1971 model year were slight at best. However, Porsche did develop a new model based on the 914 called the 916 that used the 914's body stuffed full of the 911S model's 2.4-liter, 190-hp flat six and five-speed transmission.

Apparently designed to replace the 914/6, the 916 had distinctive fender blisters to accommodate wider tires on 15-inch wheels and a fixed steel roof for extra structural heft. Only 11 916s were ever produced and all of them were considered preproduction machines. And only one of those actually made it to the United States. It's all a pity because had the 916 made it into production it would have been the quickest Porsche built up to that time.

The 914/6 was excised from Porsche's 1972 line, leaving the 914 to soldier forward as the sole midengine offering. Changes were again minimal (the front end was slightly restyled) and sales were a healthy 27,660 units worldwide. In a brief update Road & Track concluded that the '72 914 was "a car for the real enthusiastic driver." But the publication also concluded that the car was overpriced relative to the competition, particularly Datsun's much faster 240Z.

A 2.0-liter version of the VW four became part of the 914 story for 1973 and its 91-hp output left performance neatly between the 1.7-liter four and out-of-production 2.0-liter six versions. Road & Track measured the 2.0-liter 914 running to 60 mph in 10.3 seconds and the magazine concluded that "the 914/2 [the magazine's informal shorthand to indicate the 2.0-liter version] is pretty much like a 914 of any sort. The styling is plain, the cockpit has plenty of room for two people, the seats feel spartan at first but surprisingly comfortable during a long trip, and the lift-off roof panel makes the 914 more of a pre-fab sunroof than a truly open car…. The price will keep the 914/2 from being a sports car for the masses but with the extra torque, the improved gearshift, the handling and the extra quality of the exhaust note, the 914/2 is one of the better sports cars around."

The 914's base 1.7-liter engine grew to 1.8 liters for 1974 but emissions regulations actually dropped output to just 72.5 hp. The 2.0-liter's output managed to stay pegged at 91 hp. But other changes were minor in nature except for the noticeably more robust bumpers installed to meet new federal 5-mph-impact bumper mandates.

With Volkswagen losing interest in the project and Porsche developing a new family of front-engine, water-cooled sports cars, the 914 made it through 1975 virtually unchanged mostly through neglect. Only the 2.0-liter 914 made it into the 1976 model year and when that year was over, so was the 914.

There are still some 914 lovers out there, but for the most part the 914 is forgotten today — a relic with little collector interest. But it was hardly the end of midengine cars at Porsche.

[Rrrockhound]

Could they have picked a crappier photo of a 914?



Biased bastards.

[bob174]

Yeah, but they're keeping the price down and the idiots out of the market.