A few things to know before stealing my 914
Dear Thief,
Welcome to my Porsche 914. I imagine that at this point (having found the door unlocked) your intention is to steal my car. Don’t be encouraged by this; the tumblers sheared off in 1978. I would have locked it up if I could, so don’t think you’re too clever or that I’m too lazy. However, now that you’re in the car, there are a few things you’re going to need to know. First, the battery is disconnected, so slide-hammering my ignition switch is not your first step. I leave the battery disconnected, not to foil hoodlums such as yourself, but because there is a mysterious current drain from the 40-year-old German wiring harness that I can’t locate and/or fix. So, connect the battery first. Good luck finding the engine cover release. Or the engine, for that matter.
Now, you can skip your slide hammer. The ignition switch’s tumblers are so worn that any flat-bladed screwdriver or pair of scissors will do. Don’t tell anyone.
Once you’ve figured that out and try to start the car, you’ll run into some trouble. The car is most likely in reverse gear, given that the parking brake cable froze up sometime during the Carter administration. Since there is not a clutch safety switch on the starting circuit, make sure to press the clutch down before you try to crank the engine. (I don’t want you running into my other car in the driveway.) This is doubly necessary because my starter is too weak to crank the clutch-transmission input shaft assembly with any success.
With the clutch pedal depressed, the engine should turn over fast enough to get things going. But first, you’ll need to press the gas pedal to the floor exactly four times. Not three. Not five. Four. The dual Webers don’t have chokes and you’ll be squirting fuel down the barrels with the accelerator pumps for the necessary priming regime. If you don’t do it right, the car won’t start before the battery gives up the ghost. Consider yourself forewarned.
If you’ve followed along so far, the engine should fire right up. Don’t be fooled—it will die in eight seconds when the priming fuel runs out. Repeat the gas pedal priming procedure, but only pump two times. Deviate from this routine at your own peril.
Now you have the engine running. Make sure the green oil light in the dash goes out. If it does not, you only have about 100 yards to drive before the engine locks up, so be attentive. If all goes well with the oil pressure, you may now attend to the gear shift lever. Some explanation follows.
This is a Porsche 914. It has a mid-engine layout. The transmission is in the far back of the car, and the shift linkage’s main component is a football-field-long steel rod formed loosely in the shape of your lower intestine. Manipulating the gear shift lever will deliver vague suggestions to this rod, which, in turn, will tickle small parts deep within the dark bowels of the transaxle case. It is akin to hitting a bag of gears with a stick, hopefully finding one that works.
If you are successful in finding first gear (there is a shift pattern printed on the knob; they say German engineers don’t have a sense of humor), congratulations. You may launch the vehicle into motion.
Do not become emboldened by your progress, as you will quickly need to shift to another gear. Ouija boards are more communicative than the shift knob you will be trusting to aid your efforts. Depress the clutch as you would in any car, and pull the knob from its secure location out of first gear. Now you will become adrift in the zone known to early Porsche owners as “Neverland” and your quest will be to find second gear. Prepare yourself for a ten-second-or-so adventure. Do not go straight forward with the shift knob, as you will only find Reverse waiting there to mock you with a shriek of high-speed gear teeth machining themselves into round cylinders. Should you hear this noise, retreat immediately to the only easy spot to find in this transmission: neutral. This is a safe place, no real damage can occur here, but alas, no forward motion will happen either. From this harbor of peace, you can re-attempt to find second, but you may just want to go for any “port in a storm”, given that the traffic behind you is now cheering you on in your quest with vigorous horn-honks of support and encouragement. Most 914 owners at this point pull over to the side of the road and feign answering a cell phone call to a) avoid further humiliation; b) allow traffic to pass; and c) gather the courage for another first gear start. You may choose to do likewise.
If you press onward without taking a break, you may re-enter first. This is how the car mocks you for your lack of skill, but sometimes it is the only path forward. Once you are ready to again try for second, I can offer some advice. One trick that works is to declutch the transmission, pull the lever from the first-gear position, enter into the aforementioned neutral zone, and then rapidly wig-wag the shift knob side-to-side along a lateral axis. If you move the knob quickly enough, the transmission will be out-smarted and cannot anticipate your next move. It is at this time that you should re-attempt to enter second, and most likely you will do so. Surprise is your best weapon against this transmission.
The move to third should be straightforward, as it’s the only easily-accessible gear in the set. You should now be out of my neighborhood and on the main four-lane road. Third gear will be good for 45 mph, so I would advise you just staying there. Trying to get to fourth gear will only frustrate you and your nearby drivers (see: first-to-second shift).
You don’t need to check for gasoline in the car. It will be full, even though the fuel gauge reads zero. The odometer reads “0”, not because it was reset when I filled the tank, but because it is just broken. Ignore it. If it is night, and it most likely will be, you will need to turn on the lights. I’ll leave it to you to find the switch since I’ve helped a lot so far. Suffice to say that once you get them active, you will find that the seven inch sealed beams from 1971 will only illuminate sufficient roadway for travel below 45 mph. Since you are still in third , this shouldn’t be a problem. Oh, and the lights only work on high beam, so ignore the flashing lights and vulgar gestures from opposing traffic.
By now you’ve certainly noticed the smell. That is the aroma of Mobil 1 oil being boiled off of long sections of horizontal exhaust pipes, which were cleverly encased by the factory with a second shroud of oil-holding chambers. They filled with oil during my last drive and you are now operating a small thermal refinery that is making light short-chained vaporous hydrocarbons from what was once $8-a-quart oil. They are being conveniently routed to the cabin through carefully formed channels in the heating system, plus the rust holes in the floor provided by Mother Nature herself over the past few decades.
You’ll feel less dizzy if you open a window. But mind that driver’s window does not work, so you’ll have to lean over and roll down the passenger window half-way. I say half-way in a manner that will become apparent once you try to get the window to go all the way down, which it will refuse to do. Instead, simply open the driver’s door slightly and drive along, as I do. Once the oil vapors are exhumed from the cabin, you should start to feel a little better. There is a rag behind the driver’s seat that you can use to wipe the oil film off of the inside of the windshield.
Knowing which road you’re probably on by now, you will be hitting stop lights. Try as hard as you can to not bring the 914 to a stop. The brake system is ideal for this situation, being known more as “scrubbers” than “brakes”. Since you can’t effectively stop the car, use this to your advantage and don’t try. Remember: You certainly don’t want to have to go back into first.
If you have made it within sight of to the highway entrance, don’t get any ideas. The front right wheel is severely bent and the vibration at velocities above 50 mph will crack the windshield and cause the doors to open by themselves. So stay on the surface streets, stoplights notwithstanding.
It may be at this point that you consider abandoning the car to avoid further calamity. There is an Exxon station right before the freeway entrance. The last guy who stole my 914 used this very spot and it was rather convenient for all concerned parties. I suggest you ditch the car there and scope out a nice, reliable Camry to heist.
Norman Garrett was the Concept Engineer for the original Miata back in his days at Mazda’s Southern California Design Studio. He currently teaches automotive engineering classes at UNC-C’s Motorsports Engineering Department in Charlotte, North Carolina and curates his small collection of dysfunctional automobiles and motorcycles.
This funny article reminds me of many posts on Craigslist back in the aughts and early teens
Absolutely brilliant satirical piece yet no doubt true in fact. I never owned one of these 914’s though certainly saw several in Chapel Hill while I attended undergrad and grad school 84-92. Reading this brought flashbacks to the good old days of my old Subaru hatchback that I had seen so much road salt that the wheel wells at the driver’s and passengers foot wells had rusted thru and you could see the road, and I repaired with some tar and roofing tin to get by.
This is ” beyond” “good”.
This was hilarious and could easily have been describing the ritual involved in operating my 1969 Datsun SPL311 roadster in late 1977-???? Or my mistake on wheels, a 1976 Mazda Cosmo ( the ugly ones that aren’t, and should not ever be collectible!).
It did everything wrong and was an automatic to boot! Hot starts, sucked.
Cold weather weather starts, just walk. It’s faster.
i ain’t doin allat
Perfect, and they will still try. Sounds just like my 2000 Nissan exterra. 5 speed at times and if brakes work your in luck. I always tell my wife if someone tries to steal ol’ Blue it will remain in the neighborhood. It takes years to master the ability to drive it. Thank you for the laughs. Great writing.
Thanks for the information I’m good lol
You are a great writer. Very funny. Not all will understand the struggle. You just described all the vehicles I had when I was young.
Dear Norman, cute. Only an idiot would steal this old Porch. Yes I spelled it incorrectly but who cares, junk car’s deserve junk spelling.
omg that was the best thing i ever read, same way you drive my jeep.
I had a 1969 Chevy C10 pickup but I bought from a kid that lives in the town where i live , I believe it was 1983 for $300 and I can’t remember what else I had to trade with them I think I was supposed to set a hubcaps for a Chevy pickup or car I can’t remember precisely what but the truck was definitely not something that rolled off with Chevrolet line it was a 350 motor with a 2 speed powerglide transmission this is strange because Chevys didn’t put a power glide in any pickups in fact I didn’t have it any game anything lined up in the 1969 with a powerglide especially behind the 350 and two speed transmission well what he had the guy had did and he never told me anything about it was that the truck had actually been a three had a 3-speed transmission that was on the column at three on the tree. And instead of being right it actually hooked up to the shift lever so that when you were the lover would be using second and third gear he just skipped the fact that you’d pull back on the lever for first to reverse and left it in the left it in the the higher range of years and left it in second and third in the column and whatever put all the stuff in and the shifter and the little thing I indicator on top of the column that said what gear you were in he got that from some I don’t know from what but it was the right you said driving low well then something happens and all of a sudden you you pulled back on the shift lever you were in first and reverse and not know what’s. There was so many things of that truck that was strange and had a crack in the motor and someone I wanted the cylinders that that leak leaked antifreeze or leak coolant into the in the cylinder and if you start it usually there was a big antifreeze it would blow out from work from its sitting then fellow cylinder up and then you know it would be low I took a long time finally figured out about a year and it used so much oil it would literally you’d pull into the gas station and you’d check the oil fill up the oil and then check how much gas you had it got really good gas mileage but it burned oil it took oil like oh my God I’d go to the gas station and get Drain oil that had been drained out of cars . The guy at the gas station would sell me a gallon jug for like a dollar a gallon it went on long time like that until it finally cracked so bad that it blew the top of the radiator off yeah that was quite the truck the guy that own the truck his last name was Bundy like Al Bundy funnier than heck I still got the truck sitting back in the junkyard.
Very awesome story to read I loved it and really made my day to read it thank you very much
Had one of these back in the early 70s. Took two cars (one wrecked, one blown engine), made one car. Yellow, except for a black passenger door. (Oh well.) The steering was absolutely razor sharp, flawless, best I’ve ever experienced in 60 years of fooling around with over 140 cars, Jags, MB, Lotus, you name it.
The rest of the car was utterly catastrophic – if you took all 140 cars I’ve owned, rolled up every one of their multiple “issues” into one car, that 914 would still be far, far worse. You could WATCH it rust . . . I’d go out in the morning asking myself what it would look like today. When it ran, from time to time it would “go on vacation” and coast to a stop – dead – at the side of the road. After half an hour, it was fine. Never needed the “heater” since it was Florida, the car had seven different keys, I learned how to do wafer locks on that car. Parking brake calipers and cables rusted solid, evidently right from the factory. The shifter was a “suggestion”, which the transmission might, or usually, might not choose to accept.
Best fun was the rubber weatherstripping. I had a hot date ™ and when I arrived at her house, I lightly brushed up against the weatherstripping. She asked me why my nice white shirt had a big black smear on it . . . fortunately, we laughed about it later but always wore dark or old clothes when we rode around in it.
Finally sold it (don’t remember for how much) and had a bunch of miscellaneous bits left over. Someone offered me $100 for them, then asked if I would take the $100 in weed. Nope, gotta be little green pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents.
About a decade ago, I ran into someone who had stuffed a Corvette engine and a 911 transmission into a 914. It actually fit fairly well. He had no idea how to wire it, so we made a deal (“I’ll wire your car if you give me that Hercules Wankel motorcycle over there.” Took him three seconds to say yes.) I did it, he offered me a ride, I politely declined – I didn’t trust him or it.
These were pretty enjoyable cars when they were new, it is a shame they turned out to be as durable as a Kleenex in a Category 5 hurricane.
Early 70s should have been early 80s – sorry.
Ah yes, my used ‘71 914 . . . had it less than a year. First month it cost me @ $3000 for clutch, shocks, and some minor tune up parts. Loved to drive it, but still owed @ $1800 on the repairs six months after I traded it in. Don’t think I’ll ever be rich enough for another Porsche.
Great story, laughed ‘til I had a tear in my eye
Hahaha Hahaha 😆 😂 🤣 😅..
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