Junkyard Find: 1974 Porsche 914
There was a time, maybe a decade ago, when you saw Porsche 914s and Fiat 124 Sport Spiders in about equal numbers in self-service wrecking yards. I still find the Fiats these days, but junked 914s have become quite rare. That makes today’s Junkyard Find something a bit special.
This one, which I spotted a few weeks back in a San Francisco Bay Area yard, seems fairly complete, and the interior isn’t so bad.
The engine is there, all accessories still intact.
Holy cow, it even has the factory exhaust system!
Since the body is pretty well bashed up and it has an impressive coating of dust, my guess is that it got into a multi-car fender-bender many years ago, then sat outdoors while its owner dithered about fixing it.
Given that non-perfect 914s aren’t worth much nowadays, this car is worth more in parts than as a complete vehicle.
Let’s hope that other Northern California 914s benefit from the demise of this one.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
More by Murilee Martin
Comments
Join the conversation
There's a guy in England restoring a 914 that makes this one look in showroom condition! I've owned one since the early 80s and now restoring it - nothing too serious, some rust here and there. Drives like a hot darn, only equalled by the wife's Alfa. i like 912s too. Less BS than the 911, and sure I've heard about collapsed cam towers that will cost you the GDP of most of South America!
Ten years later reading this column, 914s have skyrocketed in value and desire, a car like this one in the article would not last a week, these days (2023).