Marking 50 years of Porsche’s original mid-engine sports car, this past weekend we celebrated 914/50 at Brooklands. The aim was to see no fewer than 50 914s poised on the famous banking of the world’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit for a unique and unforgettable photo opp.
Between 1969 and 1975, well over 100,000 914s were built and almost all were exported to the US. By 1970, the 914 had become one of the world’s fastest selling sports cars and was voted America’s Import Car of the Year. But it remained a relative rarity in the UK, where its Targa top was less of a deal clincher and where it was never officially available in right-hand drive.
While marketed in the US as a Porsche, part of Zuffenhausen’s agreement with Volkswagen, which built the monocoque, saw the 914 sold in Europe as the VW-Porsche. There was a natural reservation about paying premium prices (the 914 was never cheap) for a car that wore, in part at least, such humble badging.
The engine was VW too; a 1.7-litre flat-four developing a modest 79bhp at 4900rpm. But mounted behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, it provided the little Volks-Porsche with superb handling as well as surprising practicality, with a spacious cabin and two convincing luggage compartments. With so much going for it, not least of which in the intervening decades has been affordability, the 914 gradually created a cult following around the British Isles which, as the weekend would prove, is growing year on year.
Part of this increasing popularity can be put down to the exorbitant prices of classic 911s. The majority of the cars at Brooklands were unloved and affordable US imports, bought in varying degrees of disrepair and shipped over for restoration. For a few years now these rusting hulks have presented something of a blank canvas, allowing owners the chance to put a personal stamp on their car, more often than not in the form of a six-cylinder engine swap.
But this is a big part of what makes the 914 so special, something perfectly illustrated when this colourful cavalcade began rolling onto the overgrown Brooklands banking.
There were highly original examples of course, but also extravagant restomods, rough and ready daily drivers, rally cars and racers, each the perfect (or one day perfect) expression of its owner’s private passion.
Longstanding club member Ian MacMath had driven more than 100 miles in his original 914/6 racer, still stripped back inside and sporting a bare fibreglass bonnet and fully welded roll cage from its days as a highly competitive hillclimber. Ian, who is now in his 70s, won the Porsche Club National Hillclimb Championship three times in this car and still drives it regularly on the road. He is also the proud owner of an ultra-rare Crayford car, brought along by one of his friends. This is one of just 11 914s converted to right-hand drive by the company, and it drew a crowd of intrigued former Porsche mechanics at Zuffenhausen when Ian recently drove it there for the Porsche Museum’s own celebrations.
The attainability of the 914 means enthusiasts are spanning the age spectrum too. Rory Mullins is just 19 years old, a design student who has brought his girlfriend along in the family’s immaculate late model 2.0-litre car. He is parked next to Chris Twitchell, another relative youngster on the scene who is already on his second 914. This is a car he imported personally from California and has fastidiously converted into a road-going 914/6 GT, complete with arch extensions and in this case a 3.2-litre sixer mated to a 915 gearbox. Chris is committed to driving this car properly and has already taken it as far afield as Spain.
Across from Chris is David Kelleher, who has owned his immaculate Berber Yellow four-pot for 25 years. A fan of the four, David also owns a 912 but has a 914/6 in build. Next to him is the 914 belonging to the Register’s Assistant Secretary Kate Maynard, who built her stunning Viper Green GT homage long distance, using an abandoned shell found in a field in Denver, a 2.0-litre flat-six bought in Kansas and a Utah-based workshop, which assembled the car before shipping it unseen to her in the UK. After picking it up in Southampton, Kate and her husband have driven the car more than 15,000 miles in just 18 months.
And side by side with Kate’s creation was Dan Schnurr’s remarkable Group 4 rally car, in his ownership for almost 30 years and now showing more than 200,000 miles on the odometer. Dan’s car is FIA-homologated, running a trick US-built four-cylinder engine and is in regular competition use with the ultimate goal of a run in the London-Sydney Marathon.
With the welcome arrival of two cars from Belgium and a few latecomers, the tally on the day came to an agonising 49. Committed to the cause like few before him, this prompted Register Secretary Kevin Clarke, who had arrived in the 914/6 featured on the cover of last month’s Porsche Post, to cadge a lift home to where his concours-winning 2.0-litre restoration sat idle. Driving this the seven miles back to Brooklands brought the total up to 50 cars, one for each year of the curious, loveable and endlessly adaptable 914.
Three abreast along the Brooklands banking, it was the possibility of personalisation that really struck a chord. They’re a friendly, unfussy lot, these 914 owners, championing what is perhaps the most democratic of all Porsches and loving every minute of it. Everyone and everything is welcome, from the daily-driven rust bucket to the clay bar-polished show-winner. If the 914/50 was anything to go by, this once overlooked curio in Porsche’s back catalogue has a rosy future ahead.