Porsche 914: white color
The Porsche 914 or VW-Porsche 914 is a mid-engined sports car designed, manufactured and marketed collaboratively by Volkswagen and Porsche from 1969 until 1976. It was only available as a targa-topped two-seat roadster powered by either a flat-4 or flat-6 engine.
Originally intending to sell the vehicle with a flat four-cylinder engine as a Volkswagen and with a flat six-cylinder engine as a Porsche, Porsche decided during development that having Volkswagen and Porsche models sharing the same body would be risky for business in the American market, and convinced Volkswagen to allow them to sell both versions as Porsches in North America.
On March 1, 1968, the first 914 prototype was presented. However, development became complicated after the death of Volkswagen’s chairman, Heinrich Nordhoff, on April 12, 1968. His successor, Kurt Lotz, was not connected with the Porsche dynasty and the verbal agreement between Volkswagen and Porsche fell apart.
In Lotz’s opinion, Volkswagen had all rights to the model, and no incentive to share it with Porsche if they would not share in tooling expenses. With this decision, the price and marketing concept for the 914 had failed before series production had begun. As a result, the price of the chassis went up considerably, and the 914/6 ended up costing only a bit less than the 911T, Porsche’s next lowest priced car.
The 914 was Motor Trend’s Import Car of the Year for 1970.
Slow sales and rising costs prompted Porsche to discontinue the 914/6 variant in 1972 after producing 3,351 of them.
Production of the 914 ended in 1976. The 2.0 L flat-4 engine continued to be used in the 912E, introduced that year as an entry-level model until the front-engined four-cylinder 924 was introduced the following model year.
The 914/4 became Porsche’s top seller during its model run, outselling the Porsche 911 by a wide margin with over 118,000 units sold worldwide.
Engine:
1.7 L Volkswagen Type 4 F4
1.8 L Volkswagen Type 4 F4
2.0 L Volkswagen Type 4 F4
2.0 L Type 901/36 F6 (914/6)
