996Outpost.com

Well, I really wasn't looking to change my 914, but I had an opportunity come along that I just couldn't pass up. A Kansas City Region PCA friend has a good friend in Oregon who was selling some cars out of his collection. When he showed me the pictures of this one, I said "Wow, that's a special car!" A week later, he asked if I would be interested in buying it. Long story short, we agreed on a price that was very fair, my wife approved of the deal (with the caveat that my '75 Laguna Blue car gets sold), I wire transferred the money and the car arrived last night (after midnight, ughh).

This car is in phenomenal condition - frankly it's so nice that I'm almost not comfortable driving it and I'm not sure I'll ever autocross, let alone track it. It isn't a bone stock car (GT flares, rear reflector), and it isn't ultra low miles (73,000), so I'm not worried about preserving it for posterity. But I don't want to tear it up, either.

It does have an interesting piece of history in that it was one of the early 1973 cars that were sold as a "914S" before the factory made the Americans stop calling it an "S" model. The VIN is 4732900184

The seller has a large collection and takes incredible car of his cars. He had the steel GT flares put on the car, and I have photos of it in the body shop. He also had the 5-lug hubs and Fuchs put on. Plus he did several other things to it. He bought it from a friend in 1991, so I've got tons of receipts for it. The car has been treasured by its owners since 1991. I'm just really honored to own a car like this.

Anyhow, here are some pics from the previous owner, plus this morning after I detailed the dust off of it. Thankfully, there's really nothing that needs to be done to this car because now I need to get the Laguna Blue '75 ready for sale. Oh, and I have to figure out why there's a keyless remote on the keychain.

1) Correct color for your collection.

2) Holy moly that is a clean machine. How "original" is it? Steering wheel is aftermarket obv. I know nuttin' about 914's... but I like them.

Nice looking car, but are you sure about the color? Wouldn't that look better in a bright lime green or flat black? Just spitballing here...

FRUNKenstein wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:45 pm Well, I really wasn't looking to change my 914, but I had an opportunity come along that I just couldn't pass up. A Kansas City Region PCA friend has a good friend in Oregon who was selling some cars out of his collection. When he showed me the pictures of this one, I said "Wow, that's a special car!" A week later, he asked if I would be interested in buying it. Long story short, we agreed on a price that was very fair, my wife approved of the deal (with the caveat that my '75 Laguna Blue car gets sold), I wire transferred the money and the car arrived last night (after midnight, ughh).

This car is in phenomenal condition - frankly it's so nice that I'm almost not comfortable driving it and I'm not sure I'll ever autocross, let alone track it. It isn't a bone stock car (GT flares, rear reflector), and it isn't ultra low miles (73,000), so I'm not worried about preserving it for posterity. But I don't want to tear it up, either.

It does have an interesting piece of history in that it was one of the early 1973 cars that were sold as a "914S" before the factory made the Americans stop calling it an "S" model. The VIN is 4732900184

The seller has a large collection and takes incredible car of his cars. He had the steel GT flares put on the car, and I have photos of it in the body shop. He also had the 5-lug hubs and Fuchs put on. Plus he did several other things to it. He bought it from a friend in 1991, so I've got tons of receipts for it. The car has been treasured by its owners since 1991. I'm just really honored to own a car like this.

Anyhow, here are some pics from the previous owner, plus this morning after I detailed the dust off of it. Thankfully, there's really nothing that needs to be done to this car because now I need to get the Laguna Blue '75 ready for sale. Oh, and I have to figure out why there's a keyless remote on the keychain.

I think it's time we have an intervention before you end up with a driveway full of tires...

It might be too late

gnat wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 5:16 pm I think it's time we have an intervention before you end up with a driveway full of tires...

That is a very nice 914. Congrats! Good luck selling the blue 914.

theprf wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 6:28 am That is a very nice 914. Congrats! Good luck selling the blue 914.

Thanks, prof. Hope to get enough out of the blue one that the difference in price between the two keeps me out of the doghouse (at least for a while).

The battery that came with the was an Optima Red Top. Nice battery, 800 CCA. Except it was dead. I put it on a charger for 4 days in a row, then took it off for 24 hours. No start. Replaced it today with a Diehard Silver 495 CCA. That's what the "exact fit" battery is for the car according to Advance Auto.

The only issue was that the battery hold-down bracket required a triple-square bit. No biggie, I've got those. But the ones I have are these big, 3" long bits that have a 1/2" hex on the opposite end that you use a socket to turn. And of course I dropped the bit as I was pulling it out of the engine bay, which made 2 tiny nicks in the paint, dammit. On one of my hooptie cars, I wouldn't even notice. But on this car . . . I used my guards red touch up pen on them. I need to get a bahia red touch up pen as there is a difference.

Oh well, at least it's got a new battery. And lesson learned, from now on, I'm covering the body panels with blankets whenever I do any work on the car.

The 914 did not come with a sound system. No head unit. No cutout in the dash to mount a head unit. No speakers in the speaker boxes in the driver & passenger footwells. No nuthin'. It does have some sort of alarm system wired up under there and I have one remote for the alarm system (a CompuSTAR CM1300 system), but the prior owner didn't know anything about it, so I assume it was installed by the prior-prior owner in 2016 or earlier. For the time being I will just ignore the alarm system until I decide to keep it or remove it.

But, back to the lack of stereo system. The factory speaker boxes in the footwells make it easy to mount speakers. But, I didn't want to cut a hole in the dash. With the other cars in the hooptie fleet, the headunit is basically useless - I just hook my iphone up via Bluetooth and control everything from the phone while I stream music or a radio station via an app. Upon searching the interwebs, I discover that a lot of classic car people just buy a Bluetooth unit with an amp built in, but without a faceplate. You wire it in under the dash and it stays hidden.

This is the one I bought off Amazon for $22.99:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

I did have to assemble it, which was a little annoying. It wasn't bad and took only a few minutes. But, the screws and spacers were tiny for my gorilla meathooks to manipulate.

I originally bought a set of 5x7 speakers to mount in the footwell boxes, but they were too large. So, I bought a set of 3-way Pioneer 4x6 speakers from Best Buy for $90:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/pioneer-4- ... Id=6454571


I mounted the speakers in the factory footwell boxes. The screw size for the speaker mounting thread inserts are M4-0.7. I bought some 10 mm and 14 mm lengths. I also used some "mending plates" to help hold the speakers in place since the footwell boxes are an odd size.


The install was pretty simple, other than the time spent on my back with my head stuffed in the footwells (brings back memories of replacing the ignition switch in multiple 996s). I connect the power to the cigarette lighter since it is switched power, plus it has a 16 amp fuse on that circuit, so the stereo shouldn't overload it. The Bluetooth/amp module is zip-tied to a dash support bracket out of sight, directly under the steering wheel. Based on advice on 914world.com, I filled the speaker boxes with polyfill to help with the sound (my wife will never notice the missing sofa pillow).

The sound is about what you'd expect from a system that cost $113. It would horrify an audiophile. That being said, it gets plenty loud - it has a volume control knob that I could use by reaching under the dash, but it is easier to just set it on high and use my phone to adjust volume. It starts up and connects to my phone automatically. The start-up tone is just a short "beep" - there are some units like this that apparently have a really obnoxious start up announcement. All in all, I'm pleased with the results.

That is an impressively small device. Nice simple solution for your use case, I like it.