Mid-engine sports cars were trendy in the late-1960s, so in theory it made sense that Porsche would come out with one given its background with rear engines. It also made sense that the maker of expensive sports cars would try to increase its volume by going downmarket — and team up with fellow German automaker Volkswagen to design and produce an entry-level sports car. Unfortunately, the resulting 914 didn’t work out all that well in practice.
Although the 914 won Motor Trend magazine’s first Import Car of the Year award for 1970, Aaron Gold (2020) reported that the overall reaction to the car was lukewarm. “Some publications panned the oddball styling, balky shift linkage, and slow acceleration of the four-cylinder car (the 0-60 mph time was in the 12 to 14 second range).”
The car’s engineering would improve with time, such as a smoother shift linkage, an increase in engine size and the addition of anti-roll bars (Wikipedia, 2023b). What never got fixed during the 914’s six-year production run was the frumpy styling.
A sports car where form followed function
Arguably the biggest design problem was a severe notchback roofline. To be charitable, one could describe it as an unusually honest example of form following function. Porsche went in the opposite direction from the typical styling of mid-engine cars of that era, which used flying buttresses to mimic the traditional fastback shape of a front-engined sports car.
The 914’s notchback didn’t come off nearly as well as the Fiat X1/9’s, whose wedge shape and fuselage sides better integrated the sail panel. The Porsche had an old-fashioned design, where the roof was plopped on top of a beltline with rounded shoulders.
Note that the X1/9 came out only two years later than the 914, yet the Fiat looked like it was from another era.
Our featured car has a body-colored sail panel, but as you can see in the photo below, it could come in the same color as the targa’s black removable top. That reeked of an American-style vinyl roof, which arguably clashed with the car’s international sporting pretensions.
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The 914 looked surprisingly utilitarian for a sports car
The 914 had other design details that look clumsy in retrospect. For example, the front turn signals bulged out awkwardly like a kit car. The taillights were so square and generic that they may as well have been borrowed from a taxicab. And the bumpers were surprisingly big and, um, industrial for a sports car prior to the advent of U.S. bumper standards.
At the risk of sounding unkind, the overall vibe is that of a car which could have been designed in the Eastern bloc.
I get why Porsche reportedly didn’t want the 914 to look too similar to more expensive models, particularly in Europe where it was sold as a Volkswagen-Porsche. Even so, the 914 doesn’t even vaguely look like a Porsche — or a VW.
The Porsche featured in this story may be of 1970-72 vintage because its bumpers were not modified in response to U.S. standards that began to take effect in 1973. In fairness it should be noted that the utilitarian shape of the original bumpers did make it easier to retrofit the 914 to meet federal 5-mph regulations than a lot of other sports cars — including the X1/9.
Driving in a ‘go kart with license plates’
Viewing the 914 next to a recent-model Chevrolet Corvette hints at how much mid-engine sports car design has changed over the last half century.
For example, although the 914’s height was only 48 inches — 0.8 lower than the Corvette’s — it had a much lower beltline. This gave the driver more of a connection with the road — particularly with the targa top off.
Also see ‘First-generation Scirocco was trendy but didn’t look like a Volkswagen’
Manny Alban (2022) of the Porsche Club of America wrote that the “sensation of sitting so low to the ground combined with open air driving will give you a sensation that you’re in a go kart with license plates.”
Since I’ve been pretty critical of the 914’s styling, I should add that it did have some interesting features, such as unusually flush and compact door handles.
The 914 sold okay but not well enough to stick around
Despite complaints that the 914 wasn’t a “real” Porsche, it handily outsold the 911. More than 118,000 units were produced during the 1970-76 model years, which was roughly 23,000 less than the Fiat X1/9 even though the latter was in production three times as long (Wikipedia, 2023a, 2023b).
This suggests that it wouldn’t be fair to call the 914 a failure. Instead, it may be best looked at as a missed opportunity for Porsche to carve out a sustainable niche as a producer of mid-engine sports cars.
After the 914 ended production, Porsche steered clear of mid-engine cars until the Boxster was introduced in 1996 (Peitzmeier, 2019). Might the automaker have stayed in that niche if the 914 had sold better due to sportier styling and performance?
NOTES:
Specifications are from Automobile Catalog (2023), Flammang (1992) and Wikipedia (2023a, 2023b).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Alban, Manny; 2022. “14 reasons why we love the Porsche 914 | PCA Tech Tips.” Porsche Club of America. Posted July 5.
- Automobile Catalog; 2023. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.” Accessed Dec. 27.
- Gold, Aaron; 2020. “The Porsche 914: History, Generations, Model Changes, and More.” MotorTrend (formerly Automobile). Posted March 31.
- Flammang, James M.; 1992. Standard Catalog of Imported Cars, 1946-1990. First Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Peitzmeier, Klaus-Achim; 2019. “Porsche and the Mid-Engine Concept.” Christophorus Porsche. Posted Feb.
- Wikipedia; 2023a. “Fiat X1/9.” Page last modified Dec. 14.
- ——; 2023b. “Porsche 914.” Page last modified Oct. 23.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- 1970 European spec Porsche 914 photo by SG2012 via Wikipedia CC 2.0
- 1978 European-spec Fiat X1/9 photo by Alf van Beem via Wikipedia CC 1.0
As an architect, I’m drawn to fine design.
The Jaguar EType is the epitome of a sleek and svelte sports car for me. The Porsche 914 and Lotus Europa, not so much. But they are still among my favorite cars. Their engineering is the source of their elegance…in that vein, the Citroen 2CV’s chassis and suspension is a works of art.
As with the 912, it could be said the 914 too was victim of Porsche having to deal with the early 911’s issues up to the 2.4-litre. Which prevented it from developing a flat-four straight from the 911’s flat-six engine as originally planned, causing it to instead either having to carry over the old Type 616 from the 356 or the VW Type 4 engines.
As for the 914’s styling, perhaps it was too much of a departure from what Porsche were known for down to the pop-up headlights. Maybe the rejected design study by Karmann with fixed headlights was the way to go for the 914 or something radically different entirely?
https://imgur.com/LqhYZPy
https://i.imgur.com/GwO1zaZ.jpg
If my sources are correct, the 914 project was originated when both Porsche and VW needed new models: Porsche to replace the departing 912 and VW to replace the departing Karmann-Ghia Type 34. It is my understanding that most VW development work was done by Porsche, so it was Porsche’s Ferdinand Piech as head of R. & D. that oversaw 914 project. In 1966 and 1967, German company Gugelot Design GmbH began showing a proposed design for a sports coupe built with technology developed in partnership with Bayer to several major car builders, including Volkswagen and Porsche. Some sources have suggested that the Gugelot proposal, suitably adapted, was the origin of the design of the 914.(Ludvigsen, Karl (1977). Porsche Excellence was Expected. Princeton Publishing. ISBN 0-915038-09-9.) Others have suggested that body engineer Heinrich Klie was responsible. Heinrich Nordhoff was VW’s chairman when the 914 prototype was presented on March 1st, 1968. Unfortunately, Nordhoff died on April 12th, 1968, and his successor, Kurt Lotz, decided that future VW development would not be overseen by Porsche. Lotz believed that VW had all of the rights to the car if Porsche was not going to share in the engineering costs, like the use of the Packard V-8s in 1955 Nashes and Hudsons, the VW – Porsche 914 was similarly doomed long-term especially in the areas of pricing and marketing. (Shades of George Romney and James J. Nance).
In 1970, the m.s.r.p. for a new Porsche 911T was $ 6,430.00. The m.s.r.p.s for the 914/1.7-litre VW was $ 3,535.00 and the 914-6 was a whopping $ 5,999.00 ! Why buy a VW-Porsche when for about three more car payments, you could buy a real 911 !
There is this story on the design of the 914:
During his time in Germany, Ferry Porsche showed Chuck the new VW/Porsche 914, telling Jordan, “No designer touched it.” Chuck smiled and said, “It looks like it.”
It may not be a coincidence that not too long later, Porsche hired Tony Lapine to head up Design. His work dis not display the incongruities of the 914.
My father bought a new 1970 914 that I did drive a fair amount in, I can talk reasonably well about its driving habits. It did feel better on performance than its numbers would reflect because of the gearing. It was a 5 speed when most others were 4 speeds. It had a razor straight body.
As for the exterior design, it was a mess. The cross sections of the rear portion of the car were more full while the forward body sections were flatter. This made the car really appear to have been handled by 2 different people. The upper body to lower body ration appeared to be virtually equal which is not a good solution. Steve comments how he prefers the nose to the tail treat but in this I disagree – the tail did a credible job of integrating with the surrounding shapes while the nose always struggles with the turn signal treatment for the fenders and filler panels between the headlight and the front bumper. I found that the black vinyl covering of the roof hoop actually helped. The base model without that feature looked really contrived with the black fiberglass top. The height of the top was sized to allow the engine compartment lid to open without interference.
During the first year or 2 of the 914 the car was used by multiple designers as the basis for new deisgns. In particular I rememberthe Ital Design Tapiro. Although not public information initially, the 914 was the platform used for the Corvette 2 rotor.
The Fiat X1/9 was a far bette design job because it was done by Bertone that had a long history of knowing how to design properly.
One mystery there is not quite clear would be where the Porsche 914 stood in relation chronologically to a prospective 3-seater Porsche based on the stillborn Volkswagen EA266, which was to be the basis for a three-tiered replacement for the 911 equipped with four, eight and twelve-cylinder water-cooled boxer engines mounted amidships.
The prototype engine dubbed Type 1966 was to be loosely based on the inline four developed for EA266, and included DOHC cylinder heads and two EA266 water cooled cylinder blocks on a common crankshaft. Had EA266 not been canned, the stillborn Porsche was expected to be introduced in 1973 from what have read in the Randy Leffingwell books on the 911.
However the Volkswagen EA266 project was itself planned to form the basis of what appears to have been a different roadster model powered by a version of the 1.6-litre EA266 inline-4 engine.
https://imgur.com/dV6YGKY