"Where, oh where, has my
Porsche dream fled...?" An open
letter to PANORAMA (the PCA Magazine)

As a long-time “Volks-Porsche” owner (read: VW Typ 47, or 914-4), I have long lamented the fact that Dr. Porsche’s (and my own) dream has transmogrified into an expression of expensive, smooth-as-silk and technologically perfect consumerism.

That dream has, lamentably, grown bigger, heavier and more aesthetically corpulent than is either necessary or desirable, just as has America’s representative cross-section of Porsche buyers of today who are also generally, bigger, heavier and more aesthetically calorie-challenged.

Gone, seemingly forever, are the earlier days of archetypal Porsche purity, when aesthetic leanness, flick-of-the-wrist responsiveness and pared-down, sharp-edged race competitiveness were the norm...back in the immediate post WW2 era when no far-reaching aesthetic ambition existed other than to provide enthusiasts with the greatest fulfillment and the least material excess at an affordable price.

Granted that technological state-of-the-art has progressed exponentially and largely unchecked since those bucolic, halcionic days of lightweight 550s and ‘bathtubs’, but today’s America seems so slavishly devoted to unlimited technological overkill that not just the cars but the complexities of the Porsche driver’s experience have grown disproportionately...and not altogether likeably.

At the risk of sounding like that ‘broken record’ your parents were always comparing you to and complaining about when you vehemently rejected their fuddy-duddy world-views, utterly and categorically (as a teenager), E.F. Schumacher, that famed German-turned-Englishman economist boffin of the 1970s had it dialed in prezactly (sic). Endless scientific and technological enhancements and complexities of an otherwise lean and trimmed-down pleasure that is immensely, inherently satisfying as it is, is not just needless but formidably damaging to maintaining a proper sense of proportionate economic scale (not to mention one’s ability to indulge the simpler, but entirely satisfactory, basic joys of life).

The analogue I inexpertly pursue here is Porsche GmbH’s relentless pursuit of dystopian capitalism’s Frankensteinian dabbling with profitability and luxury, which to me is one of the essential yet ultimately destructive dynamic indicators of economic theory gone absolutely bat-s*it crazy!

I have long felt this way and it’s one principal reason why I early-on kindredly embraced that luckless, bastard child of the Volkswagen and Porsche unsanctified marriage, known as the ‘VolksPorsche’ 914.

Thus, it was that as I skimmed over the pages of the latest issue of the PCA’s official magazine, Panorama (the PCA’s 70th Anniversary Issue, September 2025), I girded my loins, prepared to be assaulted by the usual endless paeans of tony praise and adulation for the 911 genre. With its legions of fanatics, replete with their clonic ritual celebrations of that erstwhile ‘Holy-of-Holies’ product of the P-Company, “911 tunnel-vision” is today a given, wherever Porsche fans gather. At that point, my thoughts were abruptly brought up short by a letter sent in to the PCA magazine by one ‘Brad Bock.’

Mr. Bock (who may or may not be related to or associated with good German ‘Bock Bier’) summed this perplexing sticking point up beautifully and (unlike yours truly) succinctly when he observed (in the letters section): “I love Panorama for all the beautiful 911s, etc., but to be in this club you are probably 60-plus with a nice corporate payout of family trust. I own a 2006 Boxster Base 5-speed with 26,000 miles. Great jump from my (BMW) Z3M. I was wishing to at least upgrade to a 997.1. With entry (for that car) at $55K for a well-sorted one, I am not sure it is worth the effort.

“The newer version Boxster (2013-2017) is absolutely boring if fitted with PDK. Still in the $55K range to get in. So, after reading numerous posts to (Panorama) Letters, it would be nice if Porsche would come up with a ‘poor guy’s car’, like it did with the 914. However, in today’s stay-home computer millionaires, why would Porsche bother?”

Bless you, sehr geerhter Bock, for saying what so many others (judging from the increasing evidence, presented here and there in Porsche venues) are also saying in Panorama (and elsewhere). Please gift yourself mit einem Mass der gute Munchener Bockbier and charge it to my account!

This quandary of expensive cost escalation and attendant techno-complexity is precisely why I was first drawn to the brilliance inherent in the VolksPorsche 914 design, which has always suffered unfairly as a sort of unwanted Porsche half-breed. It is a car that still puts off many unconsciously sniffy people, who ostentatiously parade around in their 7-figure überteuerter Super-Porsche 911 clones to announce that they (unlike roughly 80% of their bourgeoise peers) have indeed MADE it!

My personal 1974 914-4 at the moment is Sunflower Yellow and has had a few upgrades to its original 1.8 liter engine, but it remains as unpretentious, refreshingly soul-satisfying now, some 50+ years after its birth, as it was when it was still a design concept being explored on a Porsche drawing board. The car’s core essence merely a notch or two short of being perfect, with its mid-engine weight distribution, its no-nonsense fabrication and...lest I sell it short unfairly...its innate aesthetic nature, was a bellwether example of a hinge-crux moment where Porsche should have kept its cards firmly on the table and pressed on, replete with a poker face. In my opinion the Stuttgart Porsche Oberkommando fatally miscalculated its bet on the future direction of Porschedom.

Before anyone melts down the keyboard of their computer advising me in flaming rhetoric of the VolksPorsche’s noteworthy flaws, liabilities and or short-comings, let me say that the 914-4 is NOT at all a peerless paragon, as regards state-of-the-art. Metallurgy for one, has advanced considerably since the early 70s of course, but consider if you will that given the essentially flawed nature of us Homo sapiens, with all of our genetically endowed, myriad short-comings, failures, pimples and imperfections, is it not reasonable to expect and accept that a certain parity of those qualities be reflected in the cars we slightly more clever relatives of Hominoidea find so enjoyable?

My little yellow 914-4 is well sorted-out, fortunately, with such things as the obligatory ‘hell-hole’ rust spots and so forth having been thoroughly addressed and rectified over the past 50+ years of its existence. Think of it like how a 3rd or 4th wife might be, whose travails on the bumpy road of prior married life have smoothed and evened out even the most wildly unrealistic expectations and anticipations of perfect marital bliss.

But what marriage was ever problem-free? Still, like human partners, we either reach a point of balanced accord with our cars or we don’t, and my 914-4 and I are still happily traveling together, so that’s the bottom line in any event!

Admittedly, my car has a few quirks, to be sure, but I have always savored a healthy measure of personality and eccentricity in my favorite wheels and I’d no more feel comfortable with a ‘showroom-fresh’ 2025 Porsche 992.2 Wunderauto, fresh off the assembly line, than I would be listening to an evangelical Christian Minister who claims he has all the keys to God’s Kingdom, Eternally and Everlastingly Forever, Amen!...(give generously to God's work when the offering plate is passed, folks!).

But moreover, the 914-4 (as a case in point), in perfect harmony with Herr Bock’s observation, is a car that I not only love but that I can afford. Mr. Bock’s objections resonate loud and clear in this age of exponentially increased costs of living, rising inflation, and the excessive prices of upper-level luxuries throughout the American economy. 6-7-figure Porsches are fine for zillionaires (since the purchase price is merely the danglable ‘membership key’ that signals a level of costly living that transcends the ability of the majority of Americans), but shucks... anyone with a couple of extra million in their hedge fund can easily afford such excessive internally combutable superfluities.

As I see it, any reasonably rational individual who didn’t flunk out of basic kindergarten math in school should be capable of discerning the moral lesson embedded in Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fable of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ The top-of-the-food-chain Porsche buyer, is buying an uber-expensive new Porsche largely unmindful that that image of having “made it” economically that he so prises is actually a chimerical construct existing entirely within his constipated mind. Realistically speaking, by E.F. Schumacher’s learned reckoning, your pockets are just as empty now as they were when you were still a high-school graduate, wondering what the future held in store for you. Rest assured that after purchasing that spiffy new 992.2, the contents of your pockets will suffer even more accordingly.

Schumacher’s theories emphasized optimal, proportionate compromise and balance, as cohort accessor ies to what he called ‘human scale’ standards of material consumption. A late-model Super Porsche 992.2 is anything but a compromise on any level, but especially in terms of cost versus satisfaction quid-pro-quo dynamics. Think of it as a Willy Wonka ‘Golden Ticket’ prize that admits one to a certain exclusive social club, but makes further extreme demands upon the consumer that transcend the nearer limits of most conventional imaginations until the day he kicks the 'Design by Porsche' bouquet.

Speaking again of Mr. Bock’s prescient observations aired in the September Porsche Panorama, and of the heady delights of good Bavarian Bockbier, I am reminded that in the Midwest regions of our nation, there are exist a few wildly dedicated VolksPorsche (914) clubs, and I personally can’t think of a better combination of ‘realistic’ creature comforts than a pitcher or two of good old Bayerische bockbier shared with a coterie of those...sniff-sniff...enthusiastic 914 enthusiasts! 

----------------------------------------------------------

POSTSCRIPT: Actually, now that I muse further on the subject of "realistic expectations" and E.F. Schumacher, it occurs to me that the unfairly bad-mouthed 914 has much in common with the 60s and 70s vintage Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, which was a beautifully styled, sporty looking Volkswagen product.

In fact, the 914 was originally conceived as a sort of successive generational replacement for that model. It had style, flair and aesthetic visual appeal, yet it was equipped with an ordinary VW flat-four, air-cooled engine not all that different from the very first KdF Bugs of the 30s and 40s. Most significantly, it was also not excessively priced and could be afforded by just about anyone who felt the frumpy (but eminently practical) Beetle wasn't quite sporty enough to suit them. 

Unlike the Karmann Ghia, the 914 had built-in potential for substantial performance enhancement, with its capacious mid-engine bay (a fact that a number of modified 914s testify to today). However, that's an entirely different story and the chief point should remain clear that a Karmann Ghia, while slightly more expensive than an ordinary Bug, wouldn't break anyone's bank or send anyone to the work house! Comparing a Karmann Ghia and a 2025 Porsche 992.2 Wunderauto, by contrast, would be like compairing a single grain of rice with a Watermelon, or a beer belly to a baby bulge! 

-----------------------------------------------

NOTE:

It's interesting to recall that instead of the 914 being Porsche/VW's suceeding generation of flag-bearing sporty cars, it was in fact what was originally another purely VW project (a model later sold as the Porsche 924) that became the heir apparent of the Porsche Company's 'entry-level' line, with its water-cooled Audi 4-cylinder engine and modest but satisfactory performance.

Long disdained by the Porsche "purist" sniff-sniffers, the 924 was in fact a  rather nice concept, with excellent weight distribution (engine forward and transaxle at the rear), great road-handling and with well-thought-out aesthetics to boot. Today, a nicely preserved 924 is a rare (and valued) find, indeed. And best of all, the Porsche 911-uber-Alles purist crowd will even share an occasional glass of wine with 924 drivers, these days.

Just goes to show you that moments of excellence aren't always recognised as such right out of the starting gate...even though (as Porsche GmbH likes to boast), "Excellence was expected!"