Preserving a 1975 Porsche 914

Scenario: A 1975 Porsche 914 sits in your garage, the product of true impulse buying. The boxy little two-seater with its mid-mounted air-cooled 4-cylinder engine is a true European sports car enthusiast's delight, but possibly the least practical car ever built.


You love it, anyway. It's just that there aren't that many occasions to drive it. Only when the weather is perfect, and you have nothing to carry and no errands that result in picking up anything bigger than a 9x12 envelope. And there are few if any big rigs (to whom you are invisible) to worry about encountering en route.

Sense of Purpose
Despite these drawbacks, you won't sell your beloved 914 because you'll never find another car that handles so well for so little money. Then what do you do with it? Autocross it.


If there ever was a club-racing event that perfectly suited a vehicle, it's autocrossing. This timed race over a relatively short course has enough S-turns and chicanes to challenge the unique stability of the short, wide, and perfectly balanced 914. During the timed trials, there may be one other vehicle on the track, but you're racing the clock, not wheel-to-wheel.


Autocross and daily driving exist in parallel universes, with one rarely overlapping the other. Everything you want to avoid on the street—brake lock-ups, skids, hitting the red line—are used to maneuver the vehicle through the course. Despite these worlds apart, the changes you make in the 914 to go autocrossing do have some value in a street car, especially an older one in need of repair and restoration.