The Porsche 914…the half-hearted Porsche. If you’re unfamiliar with these things, here’s the quick and dirty version: Porsche wanted to replace the 912 and Volkswagen wanted to replace the Karmann Ghia. Due to a deal that had been in place since Porsche’s beginnings, the two companies had to hammer out one final project to fulfill a contractual promise. This led to the 914…originally, two versions would exist: one with a flat-four badged as a Volkswagen and one with a flat-six badged as a Porsche. What ended up happening was kind of convoluted: Volkswagen’s chairman, Heinz Nordhoff, kicked the bucket and his successor, Kurt Lotz, saw issues with the agreement (he felt that VW owned the model and wasn’t happy with Porsche not sharing in tooling expense) and basically binned the agreement.
The 914 came to America badged as a Porsche, packing flat-four power and nimble handling, and lasted through 1976. It looks funky, sounds like a Beetle, and doesn’t have the classic styling of the Karmann Ghia…it’s not normally something we look at. But this one, we will make one hell of an exception for. A small-block Chevrolet on nitrous is under the flat part behind the driver and is pushing the 914 into the elevens. The car took longer to hit sixty miles an hour in it’s original condition!
There’s one of these that comes out to Sonoma that runs high 10s, Renegade in Las Vegas makes kits for V8 conversions for most Porsches, the complete cars look pretty nice.
New Year – New Chevy Pollution!
Keeping the flat four and turbocharging it would have produced faster times and fitting a fully tuned flat six would have been even better. But that requires imagination which is impossible when one is infected by the mind-numbing Chevy bug..
Happy New Year CHMG! Can’t wait for the meltdown of 2018! Chevy power baby!
Yep. My dad bought one of these a few years ago and the 55 ish hp isn’t enough for him. It’s getting swapped. No american power here, keeping it VW. It’s getting an AAZ with a T3 turbo, modified ip and a 2.5″ exhaust.
It also would have cost the owner close to 30k to keep it all German. The beauty of the LS upgrade is its reasonable costs.
Chevy Hatin’ Mad Geordie isn’t the some British wanker website that you can pollute with your daily whining nonsense instead of directing it at this fine site?
The headlines: Small Block Powered… or LS Swap…
Cause some readers, like me, to click and read what Geordie has to say. He is Good Value click-bait.
Don’t complain about him or he will want to be paid
This is such a waste. These cars came from the factory with the narrowest tires you can imagine yet they still managed to be the best handling car of their time. Putting a heavy V8 in it and driving it straight is a waste of the car’s potential. If he knew what these cars are about he would have probably put some sticky 225s on it and put some light high revving engine in and made a track/autocross car, not a drag car.