[Dave at Pelican Parts]

According to Johnson's "Restorer's Guide", the dash material was always basket-weave, with the 75+ cars getting the larger pattern.

He says that 70-71 had smooth door panels, and 72+ had basket weave door panels. Again, the 75+ cars had the larger pattern of basket weave.

Seats, according to him, had basket-weave vinyl in 70 and smooth in 71 (other materials were offered, and evidently basket-weave is listed for 1971 cars as well but few if any were built that way). I think they went back to basket-weave material for 72. BTW, this all refers only to the "inserts" in the seat, not the side bolsters or back or headrest. Those were always smooth (grained) vinyl, except for those very few 914-6es that had leather seats.

I have found that, in practice, it is easy to say "At least some 914s came with XXX"--but very difficult to say "No 914s ever came with YYY". It seems like every time you do that, someone will walk up to you and say, "Oh, I'm the original owner of my 914, and it had YYY straight from the dealer." There seem to have been a lot of variations in exactly what bits were used on 914s over the years, and Karmann's record keeping was not always as good as it could have been.

--DD