I have never featured a Porsche on this blog before. There's a reason for that: I think vintage Porsches are junk. And I drove enough of them in my valet parking days to know. Consider the famous Porsche 911. When Road & Track reviewed it in the 1960s, they found the car's handling so poor it was dangerous to drive. So Porsche fixed this... by dropping two 40-lb. steel weights into the front bumper. Even after a couple of generations of improvements, the 911 was still known for dangerous over-steer, stalling when cold, and (from drivetribe.com), "the early 4-speed manual transmission had exceptionally tall gears, making the driver be careful with shifting gears". What the heck does that even mean? I also drove Porsche 944's made in the '80s, and was shocked at the poor build quality. This is a premium-price supercar?
And yet the old 911 and 944 really are supercars compared to the lowly Porsche 914. From jalopnik.com, "The problem (with the 914) was that the engine they went with was the air-cooled 1.7-liter, 80-horsepower flat four from the Volkswagen Type 4 sedan. This was in no way a performance engine, and it showed. Even in the 914's lightweight body, 0-to-60 mph came at a lofty 13 seconds, giving the driver plenty of time to wonder if his or her purchase was really good idea.
But
perhaps the 914's biggest problem was one of perception. With all of its
VW components, many enthusiasts refused to accept it as a "real
Porsche." It also suffered from a poor shift linkage, somewhat awkward
styling and cut-rate quality that reflected its low-cost, parts bin
origins. The car was not well received by the motoring press at the
time."
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