Porsche 914: A True Porsche Pedigree

The idea was exquisitely simple. In the late 1960s, as Volkswagen sought to add a small sports car and the panache that would come with it to their product line, Porsche was looking for an entry level car within reach of enthusiasts not yet able to afford a 911. The solution worked out by Ferry Porsche and VW’s Heinz Nordhoff appeared to meet both goals. Porsche would design and develop a new mid-engined sports car for VW to be built in the Karmann facility in Osnabrück with power coming from a Volkswagen Type 411 engine. The platform would be designed to accommodate a six-cylinder Porsche engine as well; Porsche would have access to the body shells from Karmann, fit them with six-cylinder 911 power and sell them as Porsches.

Supervising the project was Ferdinand Piëch, nephew of Ferry Porsche then in charge of research and development and the driving force behind the company’s rapid succession of iconic racing cars culminating in the mighty 917. Leading the development was Helmuth Bott, a brilliant engineer who would eventually rise to become R&D chief himself. Thus the four-cylinder 914 was born, along with its upscale brother, the 914/6. Both would be marketed as VW-Porsches everywhere in the world except North America where they were branded as Porsches.

It was a marketing decision that confounded potential buyers and nearly obscured the abundant virtues of the new car. Early reaction from Porsche fans was negative. The styling was widely perceived as bland. Furthermore, how could the four-cylinder car be considered a genuine Porsche, built not in Zuffenhausen but in Osnabrück, with an engine constructed by VW? Defenders pointed out that the much revered 1950 Porsche 356 was not so different—built in Gmünd, Austria, and powered by a hot-rodded VW engine. Unlike the 356, the 914 was designed by Porsche from a clean sheet of paper, but faced an uphill battle toward acceptance.

Still, among its merits the 914 boasted torsional stiffness equal to the 911 coupe and higher than that of the Targa. It was the first mid-engine Porsche production car and the first with coil spring rear suspension. Bott readily revealed that the 914/6 had a six to eight percent advantage in cornering power over a comparable 911. The low center of gravity and low polar moment of inertia gave both versions of the 914 an agility that appealed to the serious enthusiast.

But the 914/6 had an additional problem beyond the marketing that linked it strongly to VW everywhere but in America. The death of Heinz Nordhoff in the spring of 1968 had a calamitous effect on the future of Porsche’s entry level car since the actual contract with Volkswagen failed to specify that Porsche could make the 914/6. It had been an informal agreement between Nordhoff and Ferry Porsche and when Kurt Lotz took over at VW, there was limited enthusiasm for the 914 project and no commitment to facilitating the 914/6.

In the end, Porsche would have to pay Karmann more for the bodies for the 914/6 than it was paying the Osnabrück firm for the 911 bodies they were also producing. As the cost of building the 914/6 edged ever closer to that of the 911, Porsche’s intent to offer it at a significantly lower price grew to be an increasingly marginal effort.

Success Follows Difficult Beginning

In spite of its difficult birth, ambiguous marketing, and questionable profitability, the 914, in both four and six cylinder form, became the most popular Porsche sold in the first half of the 1970s. In all more than 118,000 reached eager buyers, 70 percent of those in North America, where Porsche’s first production- based mid-engine roadsters today enjoy the place of honor they were initially denied. The key to that acceptance was a rapid proliferation of competition models that demonstrated the 914’s Porsche DNA on the great tracks of the world, including Le Mans and the Nürburgring.

But first Porsche engineers needed to find out how much power the 914 chassis could actually take. To that end, in September 1969, even as the 914 was making its public debut at the Frankfurt Show, Ferry Porsche received an unusual 60th birthday present. In the courtyard of the family farm at Zell am See, Austria, stood a silver 914, fully licensed for the street and powered by a slightly detuned version of the potent 908 race engine. With milder cam timing, Weber twin-throated carburetors instead of Bosch fuel injection, and a street exhaust system, the engine’s output was still a vigorous 260 bhp at 7700 rpm.

Distinguishing features of the special 914/8 included an external fuel filler on the right side of the cowl (an idea originally intended for the production 914 but omitted because of cost), wider headlight lids with two smaller round lights behind each, subtly flared fenders to make space for wider tires, and a single opening on the front bumper for the engine oil cooler. Porsche made good use of his gift, putting nearly 10,000 road-going kilometers on the 914/8 before European noise restrictions made it illegal.

Only one other 914/8 was built. For chief engineer Ferdinand Piëch the experimental department installed a full bore 908 racing engine, firm Bilstein shocks, and special titanium rear coil springs. Not officially licensed for the road, Piëch’s toy churned out a visceral 300 horsepower even when fitted with a street exhaust. Rarest of all 914s, the two 914/8 roadsters, never intended for series production, comprehensively established that the 914 chassis could take far more power than it was initially delivered with, a fact that would be proved over and over by the race-going 914/6s that followed.

To counteract the difficulty of selling the 914/6 (at a price that was way too close to that of the 911T), an ambitious program of competition was planned for 1970 and 1971, to include endurance racing, rallying and sprint racing. In the United States, the venue was the Sports Car Club of America’s C-Production class where the 914/6 faced strong factory supported Datsun and Triumph teams. In 1970 the new Porsche won four of seven divisional championships with nine 914/6 drivers qualifying for the Runoffs at Road Atlanta. There, unfortunately, the extra torque from their bigger engines gave the 240Z brigade the solid advantage and a dominant win.

While SCCA racing allowed few modifications to the 914/6 as it was homologated with the club, the FIA international regulations for GT cars permitted more latitude. By the winter of 1969, Porsche was preparing the 914/6 for homologation in Group 4 for Special GT Cars. By the time they were done, they had a new model. The 914/6 GT, homologated in March 1970, featured bulging steel fender extensions providing room for wider wheels. There were frame reinforcement plates where the rear springs and suspension arms were mounted, stronger lower wishbones at the front, and antiroll bars. Racing 911S brakes were added along with plexiglas windows and fiberglass body panels. The engine was kept at two liters, for homologation purposes, with dual ignition and Weber carburetors. The 914/6 GT weighed in at 1980 pounds, its engine producing a minimum of 210 DIN horsepower at 8000 rpm.

914/6 Posts Strong Racing Debut

Its first test came at the 1000 Km of the Nürburgring on May 30. Porsche 908/03s would take the overall victory, but in an auspicious debut race 914/6 GT models finished 2-3-4-5 only five seconds behind the class-winning 911L. At Le Mans barely a month later, the 914/6 GT wrote its own history. While Porsche was preoccupied with seven 917s and the effort to achieve the company’s first overall victory at the Sarthe, a 914/6 GT, entered by Sonauto and driven by Guy Chasseuil and Claude Ballot-Lena, scored an astonishing class win. The lone 914/6 GT in the field finished ahead of all other GT cars and classes, coming home a stunning sixth overall. It went the entire 24 hours without changing tires or brake pads.

Success continued in August at the Marathon de la Route, an 86-hour ultra endurance test over the north (“Green Hell”) and south loops of the iconic Nürburgring circuit. Porsche fielded three 914/6 GTs. All were signal orange, each with half its front bumper painted a different neon color for easy identification from the pits. One of the three was a standard 914/6 GT Group 4 car. The other two had to run as Group 6 prototypes because they had extra wide fender flares at the rear to permit eight-inch wide rims and 908 front brake calipers allowing thicker brake pads designed for longevity—changes in aid of minimizing time in the pits.

Raw speed was not as important as stamina and the engine chosen was the 160 horsepower version from the two-liter 911S. In a contest where only 23 of 64 starters made it to the finish, the brightly painted 914/6 GTs claimed all three spots on the podium. The two Group 6 prototypes came home ahead of the Group 4 car, the winning roadster driven by Gerard Larrousse, Claude Haldi and Helmut Marko. Once again, the 914/6 GT demonstrated its resolute strength. There was one tire change at the 80-hour mark and no brake pad replacements at all during the four non-stop days and nights of competition.

The three Marathon cars had one more mission at the end of January 1971. On the strength of its successes at Le Mans and the Nürburgring, Porsche decided the 914/6 GT would make its official works rally debut at the 1971 Monte Carlo Rally. Three new 914/6 GTs were completed late and the Marathon cars were pressed into service as test vehicles. Porsche had won the famous rally in 1968, 1969 and 1970 with 911s and their works drivers were uniformly glum about the prospect of competing with the 914/6. The rear weight bias of the 911 was better for snow, they argued.

Still, for the last several years, the rally had been run in warm conditions that would favor the handling virtues of the 914/6 and there continued to be a need to bolster its image. Unfortunately January of 1971 produced the worst weather in decades for the Monte. There would be mechanical issues as well. While two of the 914/6s suffered transmission and clutch difficulties before retiring, Bjorn Waldegaard brought the lone remaining example to the finish first in class, tied for third overall with a Renault-Alpine. It was a disappointing result in the face of the 911’s many successes at the Monte and Porsche did not continue the rally program with the 914/6.

The very next day, on another continent, the 914/6 GT proved that endurance racing was its true forte with a one-two class win at the Daytona 24 Hour, Jacques Duval, George Nicholas and Bob Bailey coming home seventh overall. At Sebring in March, Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood drove the best placed 914/6 GT, finishing second in the Under Two Liter category behind Bert Everett’s 911T.

The Sebring event was but a foreshadowing of the season that was to follow for the Jacksonville based team. The International Motor Sports Association opened its first season with an event at Virginia International Raceway in April, the first of a six race series for GTO and GTU cars along with former Trans-Am cars from the TO and TU groups. The Brumos pair drove their red 914/6 GT not only to the GTU victory that day but scored the outright win as well. They would repeat that result at Bridgehampton and Summit Point as well. It was an utterly dominant effort that made Porsche the Under 2.5-liter Champion in IMSA’s first year as a sanctioning body, brought Hurley Haywood and Peter Gregg the first IMSA GT driving championship and solidified the 914/6 GT’s place in the history of American sports car racing.

916: Last Variation On The Mid-Engine Roadster

Inspired by the success of the 914/6 GT, Ferdinand Piëch determined to create one last variation on the mid-engine roadster, this time a super street model to compete with the Dino Ferrari in the luxury GT market. In short order, chief stylist Tony Lapine and his design crew produced a strikingly handsome elaboration on the 914 concept, featuring the prominent fender bulges of the 914/6 GT, now smoothly flared in steel. Color matched fiberglass bumpers and sills added to the aggressive stance of what was to be called the 916.

Several measures were taken to beef up the chassis, including the replacement of the normal fiberglass removable roof with a welded steel structure. Part of the reason for the chassis strengthening was the 916’s full 911S drivetrain including its 2.4-liter powerplant tuned to pump out 190 horsepower at 6500 rpm. Seven-inch rims, ventilated disc brakes on all four wheels, and Bilstein competition shocks were part of the racy package while the interior featured colorful upholstery, velour carpeting and leather trim. An initial series of 20 cars was planned but only 11 were ever built.

Just before the Paris Auto Show in the fall of 1971, where the 916 was expected to make its debut, the project was cancelled. The algorithms of price, volume and profitability could not be made to sum favorably and it did not escape notice in the corridors of Werks I that the 916 would have cost more than the most expensive 911 of the time. Five of the completed 916s were bought by members of the Porsche and Piëch families. Peter Gregg obtained one and the others were sold off to close friends.

Such was also the fate of the 914/6. The following year, lack of demand and the slim profit margin that had plagued it from the beginning made the demise of the 914/6 inevitable. In 1972, nominally the final year of production, no six-cylinder roadsters were imported into the United States and it quietly disappeared worldwide.

Four-Cylinder 914 Gains Traction

Its four-cylinder sibling, however, was finally gaining traction with a Porsche-redesigned two-liter engine lending credence to the claim that it offered near 914/6 performance at a greatly reduced price. By 1976, the last year of 914 production, Porsche’s mid-engined roadster was widely regarded as the outstanding combination of performance, handling, fuel economy, and, above all, driving fun that its designers at Porsche had intended from the start.

Today, the lean, functional style of the 914 is controversial no longer. Its pedigree as a true Porsche no longer fuels arguments among purists. Like so many of its Porsche brethren, the 914, particularly in its six-cylinder GT form, proved itself many times over. And it did so in the great arenas where all real Porsches are tested and earn their chops—the great race tracks of the world.

About The Author: Betty Jo Turner is a freelance writer specializing in Porsche. For 43 years she was the editor-in-chief of Porsche Panorama, the magazine of the Porsche Club of America, retiring from that position at the end of 2012. She was named a grand marshal of Porsche’s Rennsport Reunion III and has written for Christophorus and other periodicals as well as participated in book projects on the subject of Porsche.

[Courtesy of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance – This story first appeared in the printed program for the 20th Amelia Isand Concours d’Elegance and is used here with their very gracious permission.]