"The Porsche 911 tale began with the 901 back in 1963. It was created by Ferdinand ‘Butzi’ Porsche, grandson of the legendary Volkswagen Beetle designer, Ferdinand Porsche. The replacement for the Porsche 356 was all set to be retailed as the 901, as that’s "

Porsche 914
Whether purists call it a Porsche or a Porsche-Wagen, we dig the Porsche 914, a little sports runabout that brought the aesthetics of the two brands closer than they had ever been before.
The story goes that there was a loose verbal agreement between Porsche and VW toward the end of the sixties. Porsche wanted to produce a cheaper, more accessible car than the bottom-of-the-range 911T and replace the 912. VW, on the other hand, wanted to update and replace the Karmann Ghia.
The agreement supposedly broke down when the VW chairman died – and so with the replacement guv’nor not having family or emotional ties to the Porsche empire – the original plan went out the window. Porsche retained the rights, therefore, to call the car a full-bred Ferdinand’s child.

Whatever you want to call it, you can see at a glance it was a unique and original design. The six cylinder versions – which sold less well than the flat 4s – are sporty little beasts, and a bit of tweaking along with that targa top combines to make this an achingly pretty and even practical classic. That rear-mid transverse placement means that this low slung cutie could really hug the tarmac, too.
The 914/6 wasn’t quite as successful as the entry-level 924 that replaced it at the end of the seventies, but we reckon it was more of a creatively imagined car than the ‘saviour of Porsche’ ever was.
So it goes.

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