One of the rarest cars on the show field at the Amelia Island Concours, a car which never made it to production, was this 1969 Porsche 914/8. Yes, a 914/8. This is the car that was ordered by Ferdinand Piech to be built with a flat-eight engine to see if it was viable for production; just two prototypes were constructed. Based on a surplus hand-built 914 prototype bodyshell, it was fitted with a racing-spec 908 engine, which produced a mean 350 horsepower. Considering the 914’s light weight, this car must have been a handful to drive at speed, but oh what fun that must have been.
The second eight-cylinder-powered 914 was painted silver and given to Ferry Porsche for his 60th birthday; that car had 300 horsepower, and was a bit more closer in detail to the production version. Unfortunately, Ferry didn’t care for the car very much.
Neither 914/8 was ever raced except for testing purposes, and now reside in the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.
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