Tomorrow will be the 40th anniversary of me taking delivery of my first Porsche.
On Friday September the 13th, 1974 I finally took delivery on my new 1974 914 2.0. I returned it to the dealer on Monday morning for the 800 mile first service.
I was just 19 and walked into the Porsche dealership and was totally ignored by every salesman. I finally went over to the oldest guy in the place with the biggest office and sat down and stared at him. He finally looked up and asked if he could help me. In a purposely loud voice I said "I am here to order my Porsche" Evey salesman that ignord me looked over.
I told the guy I want a 2 liter, Olympia Blue, appearance package, front and rear sway bars, and on down the list of options I wanted on my car. They asked me about air conditioning. That was a $1,000 option so I declined. The radio was almost $800 so I did a radio delete and installed an aftermarket radio myself for a lot less. Of course he said we don't have one like that in stock so how about the one on the showroom floor. I told him he had one choice, order the car I want or I will go to a dealer that will take my money.
We negotiated a price and made the deal. They took my 1973 VW bug in trade for $2,000 and I paid a grand total of $6,750 bucks for the 914. They gave me a brand new VW Rabbit to drive as a loaner while my car was on order.
It took over 5 months for my car to come in. They just kept lying to me and said the car "would be in tomorrow" so I would call them every stinking day. The phone number was 277-1700. If they had just said call in a month I would have left them alone.
I had a lot of driving to do back in those days. I put over 9,000 miles on the Rabbit. I was a photographer and shot news stories all over the state. It had the original break in oil in it. I am enough of a car guy to not just destroy a car so I changed the oil myself since it only cost me a few bucks. They gave me the Rabbit with so little gas in it I almost ran out getting to the closest gas station. One of my goals was to return it with as little gas as possible. When they finally told me my car was in, I stopped at my brothers shop and we drained all the gas out and then I put 1/2 gallon in for the 5 mile trip to the dealer.
When I pulled up to the dealership the tech was about to put the dealer sticker on it. I stopped him and said it will cost the dealership $50 bucks a month to advertise for them. The car belonged to me. I had already made 4 car payments to my credit union. I figured the sooner I got started the sooner it would be paid off. The dealership had already been paid.
Alabama was a non title state back then so all I had was a bill of sale. That was enough for the credit union. My mother had to co-sign the loan because you had to be 21 to own a car.
I kept that car until 1996. I bought my 911 in 1995 and it took a while to sell the 914. I sold it for $4,000 back then. I still miss it but I don't have a place to keep it.