Although my Porsche ownership until now has been a uniquely 911 affair, I have wanted a 914 for about 10 years.
I will up front confess that until then I had not seen the charm.
Usual list of concerns: Why would you, when a 911 is more pretty? Is it a 'real' Porsche? Why does every one I see on the road in the UK seem to have rusted from the inside out? Blah...
Then back in 2007 I happened to stay the weekend with a friend at his dad's place in Somerset.
He had imported a 914 from the US, converted to a 6 with a hot 2.2T engine, added a bunch of race stickers.
At the time he was living in South East London, kept the 914 out on the street, ignored a truly hellish hellhole, and treated every drive like he was qualifying at Brno.
On said trip to Somerset we got properly involved with the wine, cheese and rizla on the Saturday night.
Said friend announces he is moving to Australia and needs to liquidise assets, including selling the 914.
To help him sell it I offer to make a video clip to go with the forum ads.
Next morning that's we do. He drives, I film. Short clip goes on youtube.
This was pre GoPro days, and before youtube supported hi-bitrates, so please forgive the grainy quality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFZ-h81hlPQ
What was not anticipated was that there and then I realised I wanted a 914 at some point in my life.
It wasn't meant to be yet, as at the time I could only offer £5K, and that was beaten by a a couple of grand by a man in Portugal (who has gone on to rebuild the car and race it in historic series).
Fast forward a decade (in time, and in values
) and I start to wonder if the RS rep needs a stablemate.Didn't wonder for long, and what the stable mate should be took little thinking either:
A 914 please. Fitted with a 6. Preferably wearing GT arches and tuned for fun.
I first started looking seriously around May last year.
And boy what a journey it has been, coming very close to buying 4 cars before this one.
I have learned an awful lot about finding (and securing) a good car remotely. It was quickly clear that the US was the most fertile hunting ground: LOTS of teeners, and a relatively favourable USD exchange rate at this time.
Of the 4 'nearly' cars in the US, I would describe..
2 as "great cars, i was very serious, but fair game I was out negotiated":
- First was a 3.2 engined Marathon De La Route rep, a track toy in NYState:
- Second a 3.2 GT hot rod in Sacramento (this was a BaT auction: bidding on a BaT auction is something everyone should try at least once!)
1 as "a nice car, but i don't mind missing out to a higher bidder, since it's not exactly what i want":
- 2.7 CIS, shiny but average quality underneath GT build in SoCal:
]And 1 as "Holy cr@p, that was close... I only just missed a bullet!!"
- A red, 3.2 engined money pit (these photos did not come from the seller! these cam later from the inspection):
In total I had 5 different cars PPI-ed: the 4 above, plus the one I bought.
The cost of all those reports alone added up to a not inconsiderable sum, but it was all money well spent.
For example, I had spent a good 4 hours on the phone with the seller of the red car pictured above.
His description of the car's condition and works completed was really very reassuring, and he supplied about 100 detail photos to show me how good it was.
I cyber-sleuthed him and he had a very convincing history across a few forums: plenty of the 'right' questions and work progress posts dating back years about 914...
Thank gawd for the PPI. Before simply emailing his PPI report to me, the Porsche specialist in Ohio instead called me at work and said "Before I send you a long email, I needed to call and tell you... you should not buy this car"
Turns out all the work done on the car had indeed happened, but that it dated back 15-20 years, as did almost all of the photos the seller had supplied.
And since all that work, the guy had driven the car year round. And let's just say, they have hard winters in Ohio
Anyway, all's well that ends well.
One morning I spied a new for sale thread for another 914-6 conversion and, like all so many things in life, something just felt right from the off:
As soon as I contacted the seller I could just tell not only was he hiding nothing, but also that he was selling a good one.
It felt like no smoke and mirrors were being employed either, straight away he showed me a few (relatively easily fixable, but also easily hidden) issues, and came across as a genuine good egg.
The car was in Texas.
A post on Early911s looking for a place to PPI hooked me up by coincidence to a Dallas shop who already knew the chap who converted the car to a 6 and did most of the big work back in the early '00s.
That shop member gave me this chap's number and within days I was on the blower getting nut and bolt detail from him about the car. Warts and all.
And by he sounds of it very few warts to worry about.
As part of the negotiation I had the owner agree to trailer the car 400miles round trip to a Porsche specialist in Fort Worth and -what do you know - they called me after the PPI to say they had known the car since the early 80s and that it was a good 'un.
"Right... where is the Buy It Now option?" said my heart!
Well, as others here who have bought and imported from the US already know, finding the car, and then actually getting the car to your UK driveway is a long journey in itself!
The trials and tribulations of importing a car stuff has all been covered in enough threads already.
I could fill several posts just with the fun/white knuckle ride of transferring money internationally to people you have never met living many 1000s of miles away, watching ships in real time on googlemaps as they move millimetre by millimeter across the Atlantic, researching icebergs, worrying every day about whether the silk purse is a sow's ear...
Suffice to say that I liken it to buying a house: once you are fully committed to buying and importing from afar, time then seems to slow down, just so you can enjoy worrying about all the unexpected curve balls that could fly in and ruin your plans.
The car was transferred into my name on November 5th. I did not actually get to collect it from Southampton until Jan 8th.
BTW, I used Kingstown for the entire process, and all recommendations for using them are deserved.
So after nearly 10 years of wanting, I now finally have that 914/6 conversion
914world has been a huge source of info and support.
That forum does not have the safe and friendly feel of the DDK (and let's be honest, are there any other car forums that can match DDK in that way
).But boy is the knowledge pool deep and wide on there.
I got LOADs of support in the forums and via PM, even though I was one of these annoying Europeans who are currently buying up and exporting all 'their' good 914 stock
But good as the 914world advice has been, you can't beat a bit of homegrown guidance and the DDK network:
Special mention should go to Moggy and Wayne (rhd racer), both of whom have spent many hours with me on the phone checking out photos / emails / for sale ads / PPI reports etc etc.
Wayne even took a day off work and drove 400 miles with trailer to collect the thing with me.
Cheers guys
I'll post again later in the week to share some more details on the car itself, now that I have finally have it here:
For now I can tell you that it's a proper "sleeper":
3.0 on webers, big brakes, uprated suspension... but all wrapped up in a discreet, narrow bodied, light ivory coloured disguise.
My current plan is to hot rod the thing: GT arches, 7s and 8s, etc., more of which in subsequent posts...
Look, here is its garage:
