[Dave at Pelican Parts]

IMHO, you are at least partly equating "quality" with what I think of as "excess weight". The solid-sounding "THUNK" that you hear in the 911 is the result of having a door that weighs about 4x as much as a 914 door, due to extra insulation, more metal, power windows, yadda yadda yadda.

The 914 is a lightweight sports car. By the mid-late 70s, the 911 had become a comfy "touring" car with some power and that handled pretty decently. They are built differently, for different purposes.

The extra rattles in the 914 can get annoying, true. Fixing them is a matter of tracing every individual one down and dealing with it.

--DD