PORSCHE 914 1.8
Year of manufacture 1972 Recorded mileage 59,331
Asking price €16,250 Vendor Stolze Classic Cars, De Lier, Westland, The Netherlands; 0031 174 520884; stolzeclassiccars.nl
WHEN IT WAS NEW
Price £2255 (1.7) Max power 84bhp Max torque 100lb ft
0-60mph 11.8 secs Top speed 111mph Mpg 26
If ever you have some time to kill and fancy a bit of fantasy classic shopping, may I recommend the website of Dutch orchid farmer and automotive hoarder extraordinaire Joop Stolze? But be warned, you will almost certainly need more than a lunch hour to take it all in. This remarkable collector has around 450 cars in stock at any one time, and while some of them are the shiny restored examples that you’d expect to find with any classic car dealer, of far more interest are the old flower greenhouses filled with everything from Lasalle fire engines to rare coachbuilt exotics, in all states of decay.
Scroll through his site and you’ll wonder whether those cars you had thought were long out of reach might actually be attainable – cars such as the Porsche 914. It’s something I’ve always fancied, fuelled by the Porsche Club GB 914 registrar living just around the corner from me, but had some time ago accepted were probably too rich for my wallet.
Yet Joop has a whole gaggle of them – 13 as I write, ranging in condition from ‘to restore’ to ‘perfect’ and priced from €9950 to ‘upon application’. My ideal would be a 2-litre (or a 914/6, although that is dreamland these days), but I’ve tried not to be greedy and settled on a 1.8-litre car described as ‘very good’ and which looks like a usable fixer-upper rather than a show queen.
Like so many of Joop’s cars, it has been shipped over from the USA – in this case California – and is described as being free from both rust and accident damage, with perfect, original floors. From the outside it looks like a fairly good car (from 20 paces or so), and I just love the powder-blue colour and handsome period alloys. Up close there are blemishes – not least the clonk in the nose and a saggy headlight – plus the lower bumpers should be chrome and the sill covers black, but at least the 5mph nudge bars have gone and those quibbles are all fixable. Crucially, it all looks sound and serviceable, and under the engine cover there is a recently rebuilt, fuel-injected 1795cc flatfour, plus an overhauled five-speed ’box – with a sheaf of bills to prove it.
The interior is a bit dusty, but appears as if it will clean up well and be perfectly serviceable. The aftermarket stereo and wheel – plus obligatory dashboard cracks from the California sun – are items for the ‘titivate as you go along’ list, although I can’t help wondering if, once I got the car running and road-legal, I’d be too busy enjoying driving it to bother.