Justin asked me a little while ago what I thought about the Porsche 914. Since he logged off before I could respond—and because I have a good deal to say about the little car—I'm going to post my response here.
I think the 914 is a fantastically charismatic car for three somewhat-overlapping reasons:
- It's underappreciated,
- it's loads of fun,
- and it's idiotic as all hell.
I'll explain. But first, I'll give you a bit of background on the 914.
The Porsche 914 is a very small mid-engined car developed by Porsche and Volkswagen at the end of the 1960s to sit between the VW models and the bottom-trim 911. The 914 was sold in Europe primarily as a Volkswagen, and exclusively as a Porsche in the US. Almost all models came with a 1.7, 1.8, or 2.0L flat-four derived from the unit in the VW bug and Porsche 912, and a few lucky models (the 914/6) got the 2.0L flat-six that was going into the 911 of the time.
The 914s fall into the category of Yet Another Porsche That Had a VW Engine And Which Porsche Isn't Proud Of. There are a bunch of these: the 912, 914, the 924 (which actually had a VW van engine), and so on. Porsche has always positioned itself well above the riffraff and these Wolfsburg-powered little beasties have been positioned in the corners of salesrooms that the salesmen drop you off at after finding out that your income doesn't have enough digits in it. It actually took Porsche until the 944 (and, more notably, the Boxster) for them to really start pitching the bottom-end Porsches as actual Porches.
I mention that the Boxster and the 914 have had slightly different positioning in the Porsche lineup because in essence, they're the same car. It's taken 20 years for Porsche to figure out that they can make good money pretending that cars which aren't 911s are actually Porsches.
So much like the Boxster, the 914 was a mid-engined light runabout counterpart to the 911. Remember, kids, that the 911 has a rear-mounted engine, which means that the pistons and cams and flappy bits all sit behind (yes, behind) the rear wheels. Both the 914 and Boxster have their engines positioned right behind the driver but in front of the rear wheels. This is important because it's one of the best places for an engine to be in the car—arguably the absolute best, although I won't get into that discussion here.
That's enough background. Now into what's relevant about the car.
The 914 is neat because it's fairly (not completely) cheap and it's fairly common. They're fairly reliable tend to be much cheaper to service than a typical 911 of the same vintage and condition. Most importantly, they're lighter than almost anything on the road and handle really really damned well.
Of course, this isn't without its downsides. They were built fairly cheaply and tend to rust completely through when you, say, dump a bucket of water on them. They won't tend to hold their value as well as 911s and because they're cheaper, they tend to get passed around a whole lot more and flogged much more seriously. And these cars have to be flogged because although they're so light, they're still fairly underpowered. It's actually cool to putter around in an old 911 but a 914 doesn't seem to have anything really going for it until you're careening around a corner.
And most importantly—and this is the main reason that I haven't bought one yet—is that it's the automotive equivalent of the Big Wheel. Do you remember the Big Wheel? Yes? Have you seen many around recently? No?
The reason is that the Big Wheel is ridiculously unsafe—it puts an entire kid at a below-kid level and makes him mobile enough to get into the middle of traffic. Choosy parents everywhere quit buying these things long ago because they're unsafe if you happen to be a terrible paren and neglect your kidst—which many do.
The 914 is similar in that it's very very short and has the overall rigidity of a small aluminum can. In general, new cars are safer than old cars and, when cars are of the same vintage, big cars are safer than small cars. The 914 is a small, old car and it's just about the last thing that I'd ever want to get T-boned in. That thought alone is was has kept me from buying something of this size.
Now, does that mean I'll never buy one of these? Probably not. But I'm at the point in my life where if I'm going to get a car, it has to be useful both on and off the track, and a 914 isn't really the sort of thing I'd like to use on the highway very often.
But safety faults notwithstanding, the 914 is an awfully charismatic car. It's underappreciated by the masses (which means that it's cheap) but it's also underappreciated by the collectors, which means that it will stay cheap.
In the end, I'd have to say that you can probably get the same kicks out of a first-gen MR2 or a Fiat X1/9 without all the hassle of owning a Porsche. Both have much more easily serviced parts (the Fiat shares most parts with the Yugo which, despite all the press, is actually a really reliable copy of the Fiat 124) and will likely be more of a hoot, anyway. With a new set of running gear they'll all be indistinguishable in performance on the track and neither the MR2 or the Fiat have the serious rust problems that the 914s do.
That's not to say that the 914 is a bad car. In fact, it's a really likable car. But, there are better cars out there, too.
What, no love for the 914? Anyone?