Perhaps the neatest thing about cars in general is how people respond so differently to so many different models, right? Stuff that you’d walk past on a used car lot others would be throwing themselves on top of. Trucks that you’d rather never see again are coveted by thousands. Hagerty has an awesome YouTube channel and they are cranking out content on a near constant basis. They have a series called “Why I Drive” and they are short films that have an owner and their car interacting with the owner explaining why they drive a particular car. In this episode we meet a dude and his Porsche 914…maybe the neatest little 914 we have ever seen.
A Porsche Owners Club race car formerly and now back on the street, this thing has fender flares, way wider than stock rubber, SuperTrapp mufflers, and a stripped interior. This thing is rough and tumble and likely the most visceral automotive experience one can have. A car that is light and not all that powerful but carries its engine right in the center of its guts, the 914 with increased grip and shortened transmission ratios has to be like a go-kart with a little more crash protection. A little more, stressing the little!
We have never seen a Porsche 914 before and thought, “Damn it would be fun to have one of those.” Now we have. Part of it is Tyler’s love for the car, part of it is seeing him manhandle the manual steering, and part of it was seeing it sliding sideways on a mountain dirt road.
That’s fun. That’s real, genuine, pure fun.
My dad put 600K miles on his 914 before parting ways with it. It was pretty comical seeing my 6’3″ dad get into his tiny raspberry porsche to commute to the research labs in Malibu. He loved that car. I rebuilt the motor 3 times, the transmission,(the only 911 spec part on the car) made it the entire 600K and still worked albeit kinda sloppy towards the end. The final incarnation of his 914 mod wise was: Sachs lowered springs with Koni struts, Western wheels, sodium filled exhaust valves pushed by a mild cam and not much else other than stock goodness. The biggest repeat problem we had was the clutch cable guide tube ripping out of the firewall every 200K miles or so.
You might eventually find yourself trying to track down your dad’s Porsche for various reasons. When that day comes I’d like to wish you much luck!
Dear BKBridges,
Please write a book about that so the rest of us can read it. In truth.
Rod Simpson swapped a few Chevy small blocks in these, creating nimble little Q ships!