By Robert Emslie
Well, I’m back again with another ode to the fallen, a junkyard car that I think didn’t deserve its ignominious final fate. Today we have a box fender 914 that’s so complete you could imagine driving out of the yard – if it had a neighboring parts car available that is.
The 914 was originally intended to replace – in six cylinder guise – Porsche’s 912, and as a four cylinder car, the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. Like so many great ideas, this only came partway to fruition and while the four cylinder cars were dual-badged in Europe, here in the states they all arrived as Porsches. Initially available with a 1.7-litre, 80-horse, flat four shared with the VW 411, the lessor model offered modest performance, but exemplary handling owed to its mid-engine layout and well-sorted suspension. The six cylinder car – today as rare and valuable as golden hen’s teeth – featured a sweet 2.0 six that bumped power to just over 100-horses.
Perhaps more unique at the time than its mid-mounted motor was the 914’s styling which was unrelated to anything else in either the Porsche or Volkswagen portfolio. Polarizing at the time, the car’s styling is today gaining fans, and the 914s seem to be following their 911 brethren in climbing in value. That perhaps wasn’t enough to keep this white and boxed up 2.0 edition from ending up in my local U-Pull-It yard.
Yes, those fenders look like a poorly thought out choice here, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t at one time look awesome, enclosing a nice set of Fuchs perhaps, and proudly wearing bookending the proclamation of the car’s Porsche heritage on the rockers while secretly cosseting the Volkswagen mill hidden deep within. Less nice were the copious quantities of foam filling the inside of those fenders.
Whenever I find a 914 at a yard they are almost never as complete as this car currently is. Usually they are missing entire motors, or have had their interiors stripped of every possible useful piece. Not this one however. Not only are the door handles still there, but so are the gauges, the seats, and most of the motor. In fact, I was surprised to find the car still had its roof in place.
How did this 914 end up in such a predicament? It’s hard to say, but it looks like a driver that had something go very wrong at some point – blown engine? lunched gearbox? – and then was put aside until it could be fixed. Days turn into weeks, which of course become months and years, and eventually the landlord is saying you’ve got to get rid of that heap or move out. I don’t know if that’s the case here, but whatever the reason, this is yet another sad resident of the last stop on the way to the crusher. Do you think that for this particular car that was a fate that was undeserved ?
Images: ©2014 Hooniverse/Robert Emslie, All Rights Reserved
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