The Porsche has pedals mounted to the floor, which stick upward into the passenger compartment. This is neither new nor novel—the VW bug I baja'd in college had the same arrangement.
What is new and dumb is that the Porsche engineers put this weird floorboard between the pedal assembly and the tops of the pedals—although, I've got it removed in the photo at right. The idea was that it hid the pedal housing contraption you see down at the floor (and the surface rust...and the original paint color) so you wouldn't have to deal with it daily.
But when I say there's a second floor perched around these pedals...doesn't that seem like a huge pain in the ass? It turns out that it is, and the damned Germans couldn't even settle on how inconsistent to make it, as the throttle is arranged completely differently from the two pedals. So there's this weird wood false floor with slots for the clutch and brake pedals, but with just a hole for the throttle pushrod. Oh, and the stop for the throttle is mounted on this fake floor thing, too. Franz must have been drinking more than usual when he designed this part.
The upside of this whole ordeal is that I've successfully adjusted my brake light switch so it's more sensitive, without throwing down the $80 for a new one. That's right. $80 for a switch. Although, I suppose it could be worse (see headlamp switch).
Guage location is interesting - but not very visable.
That's the optional center console and gauge package. It's a big deal on these cars since it was optional and many 914s don't have it.
The dash really only has space for a handful of gauges (like, 3) so fitting anything more sophisticated means breaking it out into a separate panel of dials. It happens that the only real space for this is near the floor.
--D