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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