After driving a friend’s nice original Porsche 914-4 and several modified ones, I can tell you that they offer a spectacular driving experience as long as you aren’t interested in going terribly quickly in a straight line. The rare 914-6 was an attempt to remedy that by putting a flat-six into the 914 chassis, but Porsche was very wary of besting their own 911, so it didn’t get a big one. This owner-modified car is for sale here on eBay and is located in Denver, Colorado.
Did you check out the price yet? Let’s just say that the buy it now price reflects that someone loves these cars — a lot. Or maybe I’m just out of touch with Porsche values? Maybe you readers can set me straight. It is a nice-looking car, probably one of the nicest 914s I’ve seen, and certainly one of the few without apparent rust.
If you’ve ever wondered where to store things in a 914, you can now see the “frunk”. There’s not a lot of space there. The owner does tell us there’s a small dent on the hood – but at the same time they detail a huge list of modifications and improvements over the original. While the basic car has 113,725 miles there are hardly any mechanical components that haven’t been refreshed, most of them recently.
As with any other 914, the interior is sparce but clean.
The seller includes some detail shots of the modifications made, including fancy HPV-1 Electromotive crank-fire ignition system. If you want a high-performance 914 and are willing to pay for it, this may be the car for you. Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Jamie, if I had owned a 914/6 back in, say, the 1980s, and was willing and able to spend a whole lot of money on it, this car represents pretty much what I’d do.
I know some don’t like to accept/admit it, but many, many buyers of all kinds of rides put in the effort — and coin — to “personalize” them. Seems to me deviations from bone-stock were much more common back in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s than they are now. I think the pool of available hop-up and dress-up goodies was bigger, too.
The intention wasn’t to vandalize (even though people now seem to recoil in horror when they see, for example, speaker holes cut in door panels), but to make each car suit its owner best. Same with engine mods (or even swaps), different suspension parts, wheels, tires, and so on.
I was fortunate enough to drive a fair number of such cars, and don’t recall many owners who saved the cast-off factory parts. I know I never did!
I really like this 914/6. Not $79K worth, but it still looks like a good piece. If the work was done as well as the seller implies, this just has to be an absolute blast on the road!
Wonderful little cars. About twenty years ago I found a scruffy 914 at a local dealer with the desirable 2.0 engine and some beautiful BBS wheels. It also had the brightest headlights of any vehicle I had owned. Low beam illuminated pretty much everything on the horizon and high beams created a resplendent artificial noon at any hour of the night. For about a month I thought the speedo was reading high because 100 felt like 70. Mine had the infamous rusted “hell hole”, but for the few hundred I paid I had no complaints! Would be difficult to justify $80K when that money will buy a used 911 turbo.
I had a 1972 914-6 which like this guy put a lot of money into it. It is one of my favorite cars of all time. Sold it in 1985 for $4,500. I have been thinking about buying a boxster just to see if it’s as much fun. There is no way anyone is going to pay 79k for this car. He’s dreaming….
As someone who knows these cars in square inch increments I will tell you that it isn’t worth the asking price. They are a blast to build and drive and can be put together easily at a reasonable cost. They weren’t built to provide retirement income in the ’60s and ’70s and they aren’t going to do it in the 2000s. For a realistic price this is a good car.
Not really into these, but it’s great someone knew what they had and kept this nice, not like that rusty beater a while back. Got to be an exhilarating car to drive. Not sure about the price, for something as rare as this, I suppose. Gonna take another “Dr. Wang”, to buy it probably.
A fully restored 1971 914-6 went for $115,500 at Russo and Steele in Monterey this past weekend. That makes this car a steal (pun intended).
The answer is to sit back, hold on, and cash in later!
I’ve driven 2 race prepared 914-6’s and yes that are so much fun to drive, either on the road or race track. I bought a 1970 914-4 back in 1970, paid 4200.00 cash for it. Yes I understand that Porsche prices have risen over the last few years, but there are small signs of the air coming out of that balloon, buyer be alert! I feel very comfortable in saying that I could build an equal car , actually not equal but maybe a hair better then this example for half that price. But my building days are over, now I get almost the same thrill by riding my motorcycle in the mountains of NW Arkansas, bikers paradise.
After seeing the headline, I expected to read the owner had installed a Corvair engine, to make it affordable to drive.
The price is off the charts and unrealistic.
I own one of these and carefully watch the market. If this was a 6-conversion then yes, it would be over-priced. But this one is real. Real 914-6s are bringing 50 for scruffy and 100k plus for the best. Building ANY Porsche air-cooled motor is $$$$$. Ask me how I know. The ask is within reason if perhaps just a wee little bit optimistic.
$79K. Ha ha ha.
In the US all 914s are badged Porsche. In Europe only Europe only the cars with the Porsche engines (914-6) were badged Porsche. The 4 cylinder cars were badged as Volkswagen. I guess they figured Americans wouldn’t know the difference.