by Mike –
Don Meluzio sent in photos and comments from the recent Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in Florida where he was showing his Fiat Stanguellini Berlinetta.
Text and photos by Don Meluzio
Pete Brock and Don Meluzio
I was reading Pete Brock’s new book and he wrote that Harley Earl borrowed the idea of a split window from a prototype by Franco Scaglione at an auto show in 1954. I asked Pete Brock if he would like to see one in the flesh. He came over to my Fiat Bertone, and we took this photo, above.
What a really nice guy, he later came back at the end of the event to show someone else the car.
Porsche 914 Pickup
Porsche 914 Pickup
One of the classes was Porsche 914 – above is the the Troutman Porsche 914 pickup.
Peter Gregg’s 914
I believe this is the factory Porsche 914 8-cylinder
Porsche 914 rally car
Porsche 914 rally car
Lancia
They could light up the night!
Lancia Stratos
Lancia Stratos
Hot Rod
Hot Rod Engine
Hot Rod Engine
The owner bought this Woodill Wildfire Kit Car, below, in 1954 and built it with a 1939 Mercury engine, of course he won his class!!
Woodill Wildfire
Woodill Wildfire
Naturally there were lots of race cars.
Porsche Race Car
Nissan Race Car
Hi Mike,
I was not aware that Porsche produced an 8-cylinder 914; can you shed some light on this?
Thanks,
Ray
Ray:
Porsche produced 2 prototypes using engines from the 908 (I believe) sports prototype race car. On the outside they are distinguished by the 4 headlamp front end. Inside it was that engine, a development of the racing version of the 901 (911) six cylinder (not the 2 litre 8 that was derived from the short-lived F1 car of 1962).
One car was built for Ferry Porsche to drive around; it had Weber carburetion and a street exhaust with over 220 hp. It was not only very quick, but tractable as well.
The other was built for Ferdinand Piech, Ferry’s nephew and then head of the racing department. It was Piech who engineered Porsche’s march to Worlds Sports Car Championship domination and Le Mans wins via the 917. His first car was the Carrera 6 using a race prepared 911 engine. His car had mechanical fuel injection and nearly a race exhaust. It was fast!
Robb
Thank you for clarifying that Rob. I knew of the 8cyl 914, assumed it was the 908 based engine, but really didn’t know. Obviously it never made production. That 914 display was great. You can always count on a great show at amelia!
Don
The car that was on display with the quad headlights is the 914-8 built for Ferry Porsche.
It is powered by an 8 cylinder DOHC race derived engine and appeared to have the same mechanical fuel injection that was used in the period Rennwagen. I noted that some modification of the engine bay had been done to accommodate the engine.
Ferry reportedly did not like driving it, probably because the engine was “peaky”, and without the good mid-range torque desirable in daily driving. To make the engine more “Streetable” would have required manufacturing a new set of cams, lowering the compression with revised pistons and a general re-tuning of the engine, something which, to my knowledge, was never done with this engine type. The street engines were the 6 cylinder SOHC design.