Driven: 1970 Porsche 914-6

Driven: 1970 Porsche 914-6
By Tom Stahler - Words & Images

You gotta love canyon runs...  The mountain road beckons cars that beg to be driven. This early production mid-engined Porsche 914-6 is undoubtedly one of those machines. They are rare. So rare that they have now climbed in striking distance to vintage 911 territory, in price, on the collectors market. Lucky me, I was invited to take a spirited drive, in a fully-restored example, by my friend Mark Allen at Vintage Excellence near San Diego in Vista, California.

But the car in my hands was not even your run-of-the-mill 1970 914-6. This Adriatic Blue beauty is essentially a mid-engined 911-S in perfectly restored 914 clothing. The builder refers to it as a “914-6 Super.” Wow, it’s special! This Teutonic treasure is powered by a peppy big-bore 2.4 Liter short-stroke in what was a stock 2.0 liter flat-six, incorporating the original block — so you still have a numbers-matching car. A joy to drive. The noise. The feel. The sensations that the sports car enthusiast craves are all there.

The 914, for many years, was the red-headed stepchild of the Porsche faithful. Despite the fact that it would be followed by the front-engined 924, 944, 968, 928 water pumpers — also sacrilege to the 911 enthusiast — flat-four versions of this car would have a tremendous following, but have only really come up in value in the last several years.

The 914 Story is an interesting one. It was a joint development between Volkswagen and Porsche. In the mid-to-late 1960s, both car companies were looking for a new model. Porsche wanted to replace the entry level, flat-four 912 and VW wanted a sporty car to replace the Karmann Ghia.  The two companies had always been closely related — as it was Ferdinand Porsche who led the design team on Hitler’s “People’s Car,” which of course became the “Volkswagen.” That model would later be known as the Beetle and in its life span, sold nearly 22 Million copies.

Porsche had generally handled the development work for Volkswagen throughout their mutual history, so as part of a long contract, Porsche was tasked by VW to initiate the 914 project. Ferdinand Piëch, the son of Ferdinand Porsche’s daughter Louise, was put in charge of the project. Piëch would go on to lead Audi — participating in the development of the Quattro and Chair the Volkswagen Group until 2015.

The four cylinder versions, a Volkswagen everywhere else in the world, sold well, netting nearly 118,000 examples world-wide between 1969 and 1976. During the original plan, however, the idea that the flat-six version would be marketed as a Porsche. The hang up though, was marketing the cars in America with the same body under two different brand names. In the end, Porsche convinced VW to allow them to market both engine types in North America under the Porsche banner.

Unfortunately with a sticker price of $5,400 - $6,050 — coming in just under $300-$800 to that of a 911-T — the 914-6 only sold 3,351 copies of the car by the time the flat-six configuration was discontinued in 1972. That is what makes them exceptionally rare — and very nice, well-balanced racing cars. You can see many of them in current vintage racing and prior years in SCCA road racing competition.

The stock 914-6 had a 2-Liter (1991 cc), 110 bhp flat-six from the previous year’s 911-T.  This was done on purpose by Porsche as they did not want the 914, which was 300 pounds lighter, out-performing the 911. It would have been very easy to put the 2.2-liter short stroke motor, but that was never meant to be.  Vintage Excellence, in restoring and rebuilding the motor for this car, had different ideas. They begged the question, “What if?”

The 914-6 in my hands was purchased by Mark Allen from a school teacher in Houston in 2006. The man had purchased it new from Holbert Porsche (yes, that Holbert) and it was essentially a driver, until parked.  When Allen got to the car, it was a “complete” barn find. It would end up sitting for a number of years as Allen honed his 911 series one restoration business and saw six-figure returns of his work at auction. In his heart though, he wanted to do a 914-6.  He had cleaned up and flipped one, but three years ago, he decided to tear the car down and build a behemoth.

Allen used Porsche Competition Engineering, in Lake Isabella, CA, to machine the heads and cylinders. In building the motor, Vintage Excellence put a 911S crank, A 66mm stroke by 87.5mm piston — making the former 2.0 Liter, 110 bhp motor a “big-bore” 2.4 Liter motor making a dyno-tuned 190bhp. With a curb weight of 2,074 pounds, this little lightweight is a rocket. The Mahle “Gas Burner” magnesium wheels are part of the weight savings from the stock 2,173 weigh-in.

Stopping power comes from 911S brakes with alloy calipers and vented rotors. It gave me confidence on entry to a couple of very tight corners. Beyond the great 50-50 balance of the mid-ship engine, handling comes from Koni shocks and a 16mm front and 15mm rear sway bar.

Because of the Targa design, there is some body flex, but the level of confidence I felt, attacking the canyon, was unparalleled. The car fit like a glove. While I was to busy listening to mid-engine, air-cooled music from behind the bulkhead, the car does feature an original Blaupunkt “Frankfurt” Stereo Radio.  The speakers are placed strategically beneath the dash in the footwells. The car is beautifully original — with the exception of the nearly-doubled horsepower, as I kept the revs up at every part of the journey.

Add to that, chrome bumpers and Hella fog lights, this is a showstopper. Of course in 1970, the Porsche faithful might have had a serious argument with you…

Vintage Excellence anticipates that this car should sell for just under $200,000. Considering the rarity of the model, the incredible upgrades to the motor and the painstaking 100-point restoration of the body to the original Adriatic Blue — which took several coats to achieve — this car is one in a million — or 3,351. This is not far-fetched as Allen’s cars have brought huge money and his restorations are amongst the best in the niche. We certainly look forward to what it brings.

TAGS: Porsche, Mark Allen, Tom Stahler, Vintage Excellence, Vintage Porsche, Porsche 914-6, 914-6, Holbert Porsche, Vista CA, Canyon Run, Adriatic Blue, Porsche Competition Engineering, 2.4 Liter, 1970 Porsche