Fun Facts about the VW Porsche 914

Today, a car like this might not turn heads. After all, The Volkswagen Group owns Porsche. However, when it came out, the 914 caused a stir as a collaboration between two of the most famous German brands. Here are some facts you might not know about the 914.

It replaced the Karmann Ghia

Volkswagen had already decided to replace the aging Karmann Ghia long before work on the 914 project began. While the Type 14 Karmann Ghia- which carried the iconic styling- would continue to be on sale, the 914 would replace the newer Type 34 Karmann Ghia, which was the flagship of the Volkswagen model range. As such, the 914 would become the new top model for Volkswagen. While the development work for the car was done by Porsche and Volkswagen, the standard version 914/4 would be manufactured by Karmann, keeping in line with the tradition of Volkswagen’s flagship being built by Karmann.

It was created to fulfil a contractual obligation

As the 914 didn’t replace the more popular and older Type 14 Karmann Ghia, many people in the car industry suspected that there was more to this project than was being revealed to the public. These suspicions were eventually proven to be true when Volkswagen revealed that Porsche and Volkswagen had a contract for vehicle development and the 914 was created to bring this contract to completion.

It was sold more as a Porsche than a Volkswagen

While Volkswagen owned the complete rights to the 914, they allowed Porsche to also sell the car as they needed to replace the 912 in their line-up. The initial agreement was 50/50, where each company would sell half of the cars produced. However, in the American market the 914 was solely sold under the Porsche name as Volkswagen’s sports cars had never been popular in The USA. This practice ended up being repeated in other markets to aid sales, although Volkswagen would still get the profits from the sales of cars under the Porsche name over the 50% margin.