30 ms·

A few things to know before stealing my 914

• incanus77 5y ago
  I drive/maintain/am tortured by a 1985 VW Vanagon and so much of this rings true. The variety of tricks, quirks, smells, sounds, and special tools/rags/spots to hit just right to sustain a trip down the road are surprisingly similar.
• LinuxBender 5y ago
  I get Error code: SSL_ERROR_UNSAFE_NEGOTIATION Qualys also detects that this is disabled. I would like to see the page as I like older cars.
  • jerf 5y ago
    A surprisingly apt error, really, given the article.
  • dpedu 5y ago
    Try using archive.org or another one of the various web archive sites. https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hagerty.com/media/advice/a-few-things-to-know-before-you-steal-my-914/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hager...
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• nes350 5y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hagerty.com/media/advice/a-few-things-to-know-before-you-steal-my-914/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hager...
• jamroom 5y ago
  As someone who drove a 1972 Westfalia for ~10 years this had me laughing to myself multiple times in agreement.
  • Finnucane 5y ago
    I was gonna say, I took a long road trip in a 1971 VW microbus and this was triggering some memories. Especially the description of finding the gears!
    • jamroom 5y ago
      Yes the gears! The amount of "play" in the gearbox was insane. Couple that with the like 3 foot long stick handle and IN GEAR I could wiggle the stick in a like foot wide circle. Once you had driven it for a while you got to know the "feel" of it and had no problems, but like in the article someone new to driving it would have had a really hard time lol.
      • floren 5y ago
        My 1985 Jeep CJ-7 is similar... I can be rolling down the road in 3rd gear and the gear knob will occasionally start oscillating in a 4-inch circle all on its own.
      • Finnucane 5y ago
        Someone new to driving now probably doesn't even know what a gear stick is.
  • warmwaffles 5y ago
    Same here, but with a 1972 BMW. My brake vacuum booster never worked so it is like stomping on a rock. On a cold day you had to feather the throttle, clutch, and brake at the same time until it got warm. I live in a warm climate so it's been tuned to idle well on a hot Texas summer day.
• rcpt 5y ago
  Great writing and nice to see people who enjoy their hobbies but jfc this kind of thing shouldn't be allowed on public roads.
• a_simple_dev 5y ago
  very Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Loved it.
• herodotus 5y ago
  Brilliant!
• mywittyname 5y ago
  The joys of classic car ownership.
• throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  He could write pretty much the same article about owning an OG Chrysler minivan, which is arguably a more historically significant vehicle but built by a make that prompts sneers about reliability and credit scores from most here, and it would just be considered trashy or prompt pearl clutching by most of the readership. Amazing the breadth of preconceived notions that can be leveraged with a badge on a grill. Having the presence of mind and ability to leverage readership demographics like this is what really separates good writers and editors from the mediocre.
  • jrsj 5y ago
    You might be overanalyzing a bit. I think it really comes down to sports cars being cool & vans being…vans. All the “Porsche” part really does is get more clicks (because people know what it is).
    • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      I think most people here would be fawning over the article were it a Toyota Previa or some other car that does not bring to mind "transportation that a day laborer would have driven circa <10-15yr after its model year>" which is what happens to a lot of successful vehicles.
    • Rebelgecko 5y ago
      On the flip side, the sports car snobs will say that a 914 (especially the 4 cylinder version) is basically just a funky looking Volkswagen :)
  • h2odragon 5y ago
    The starting rituals reminded me of my '77 Olds Cutlass with the junkyard intake and monster carbs and all sorts of other unwise additions to an already crappy and clapped out machine. Only two people could start that car, and what with the bailing wire holding the axles and frame together no one ever wanted to try towing it.
  • unregistereddev 5y ago
    There's a difference between bad cars and hilariously bad cars. The OG Chrysler minivan was historically significant. I respect people who still use them as work vehicles, or people who embrace the hacker mentality to turn them into something they weren't originally (there are a few minivan dragsters). But they aren't celebrated as great driver's cars. A better comparison to the Porsche 914 would be an MG roadster - or if you want to stick with Chrysler, then a Dodge Omni GLH. By modern standards both of these are unreliable, uncomfortable, and hard to drive, but like the 914 they are celebrated by enthusiasts. Part of the reason is because despite their flaws, and despite being relatively hard to drive, they reward skill. While slow to accelerate, they handle well - allowing a skilled driver to make good lap times on a track.
• bbarn 5y ago
  Wow, I could write almost the same article about my '85 Westfalia Vanagon.
  • kragen 5y ago
    I was thinking exactly the same thing, except ① it was '83, not '85 (and thus air-cooled); ② it was an aftermarket camper van conversion with some slight design issues in the pop top, not a Westfalia; ③ after I rebuilt the engine a second time we sold it, so, blessedly, it's not mine anymore. My engine rebuild survived for a couple of years until the new owner drove it in second gear for an hour at highway speeds, overheating the engine to the point where it punched a pushrod through the crankcase.
    • dilap 5y ago
      re ③, on...purpose?
      • kragen 5y ago
        I don't think he destroyed the engine on purpose, if that's what you meant. I did sell it on purpose though. I rebuilt the engine on purpose too, because without a working engine the market value of the van was scrap metal.
    • bombcar 5y ago
      Ⓡ②⑤ |–|–| ①③④ Huh HN lets me approximate the shift pattern of a deuce.5
    • bbarn 5y ago
      Mine's an aftermarket high top, with what I believe were salvaged Westfalia interiror components, because nothing really fits right :)
      • kragen 4y ago
        Ha!
• duxup 5y ago
  This remind me of how amazingly complex a modern car is in terms of making it easy to drive and how may iterations / how much evolution has taken place.
  • ehnto 5y ago
    A friend of mine tweaked a sensor on his car and it wouldn't recalibrate, which disabled all of the electronic assists. It drives like a shopping cart now.
• emsy 5y ago
  I love seeing old timers on the street. The ones that get preserved are usually so much more aesthetic than contemporary cars.
  • frosted-flakes 5y ago
    The old cars have better or worse aesthetics? Something can't have "more" aesthetics, it's not quantifiable. That's like saying something has more temperature, instead of a higher or lower temperature.
    • emsy 4y ago
      I’m not a native English speaker so pardon me please.
• BayAreaEscapee 5y ago
  For awhile I was into autocross. I remember one guy who would always show up in a Porsche 914 with racing tires, and he would run circles around us amateurs.
  • giarc 5y ago
    It's not always the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog. I knew a guy that was an incredible mountain biker, won all the races he entered etc. He used to show up with crappy bikes probably 10lbs heavier than everyone else... he'd still win. Sometimes you either have it or you don't, and all the equipment in the world won't help you.
    • theluketaylor 5y ago
      In this case a 914 is close to the perfect car for autocross. They are super light, so they change direction like a fly. The mid engine layout means they have excellent balance. Autocross is a low speed event, so the lack of power isn't the penalty it would be on a larger circuit. With modern tires a 914 should do extremely well.
      • LanceH 5y ago
        The mid engine induced balance and short wheelbase on the 914 just made it ridiculous for autocross. It was like playing a video game where you stick to the ground. I certainly raced more powerful and faster cars, but it was possible to coax everything out of the 914 with an ease that few other cars could match.
      • spaetzleesser 5y ago
        Sounds a bit like my Lotus Elise. I never tried autocross but that car loved tight not too high speed tracks.
        • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
          Those are a blast. I took a friend's one around a listed 15 mph corner at darn near highway speeds (on warm semi-slick tires) with not near the understeer you'd expect.
• rob_c 5y ago
  story makes me realise why MOTs exist :P sounds like the owner has good fun with that relic, but I wonder is it actually roadworthy?
  • MBCook 5y ago
    Based on what they said, no. Not at all. Great read.
  • kingcharles 5y ago
    MOT surely won't check half the things that are wrong with this car though? Shitty starting, busted gearbox? Most 90s supercars wouldn't pass if that was a problem :p What do MOTs say about antique cars? I've had some really rough old Minis pass the MOT in the past.
• mellavora 5y ago
  My first car was a 914. Love and miss it to this day. At some point the solenoid died (or some other electrical component). So to start it, you'd have to reach under the car with a screwdriver (or some other piece of metal, but I kept a screwdriver in the car for this purpose), and short out across two terminals. You then had 10-20 seconds to get out from under the car, into the driver's seat, and turn the key. As a practiced manouver, it was pretty quick.
  • jihadjihad 5y ago
    Wow, what a blast from the past. My first car was a 1990 Mercury Grand Marquis, and it developed this same solenoid issue. My grandpa taught me that same trick of shorting past the solenoid so that the car can start. My friends were always very curious why there was a hammer underneath the passenger's seat, at least until I told them to hand it to me and crank the engine when I gave the shout.
    • floren 5y ago
      Kind of wild that both you and GP developed tricks for shorting the solenoid when a replacement solenoid is like $20 and 10 minutes of work. Well, at least for a Mercury Grand Marquis aka the Ford Crown Victoria, I can't speak for Superior German Engineering.
      • dclowd9901 5y ago
        What’s that joke about “temporary fixes that work are never just temporary?”
      • rrrhys 5y ago
        I used to have to hit my starter motor with a long pry-bar to get it going. Now that I've finally got a reliable car and the money for the $20 solenoid we have a saying about cars in general: Used to have the time but no money, now got the money but no time.
    • logbiscuitswave 5y ago
      The neat thing about Ford solenoids of that era were that they were very conveniently located near the top of the firewall and can be easily triggered manually if needed with a big screwdriver across the leads. (And hope you don’t get electrocuted in the process.) Contemporary GM solenoids were integrated into the starter motor and were a real pain to get to. Certainly not impossible to do the screwdriver trick but far less convenient with needing to crawl around on the ground and all. Being located right next to the exhaust headers also meant they were easily susceptible to heat soak problems which would cause a failure to activate - especially if you have a hot-running high performance engine. It was actually a pretty common and easy mod on those GMs to use a Ford solenoid and bypass the one on the starter motor.
• blastro 5y ago
  In high school, my friends and I managed to resuscitate a 914 that had been stowed away in a garage for over a decade. We towed it to the top of a hill with a pickup truck and attempted a clutch start after we'd picked up some speed. None of us (especially me in the driver's seat) expected this to work, but amazingly it fired right up. One of my friends managed to jog alongside and jump into the car as I tried to keep it puttering along, and we ripped a few laps around the neighborhood. Soonafter, we stopped the engine and were never able to get it started again. Thanks for bringing up this memory. Cool article.
  • Eric_WVGG 5y ago
    My father had one of these just sort of gathering dust in the garage when I was growing up, utterly shocked when I turned 16 and he handed me the keys. I still like to casually drop "oh yeah, I used to have a Porsche back when I was 16." Although I must say it was in immeasurably better shape than this one :D I still dream of finding an old 914 and giving it an electric conversion… I'd have to do something about that rear window, though, it whips air forward when you drive with the top down.
    • tricky 5y ago
      Hello to a fellow member of the "my first car was a Porsche" club. Mine was a $400 924 that broke at least once a week. Good times.
      • f38zf5vdt 5y ago
        924 here too! Totalled it (not that there was much to total) at the age of 20. May it rest in pieces.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
      • polynomial 5y ago
        The 924 had a design flaw in the engine. The oil pressure sensor was located in the oil pan at the base of the return pipe to the cam, rather than at the top of the pipe at the cam. Thus, the pipe could become clogged and no oil would reach the cam shaft, while giving no indication of the problem. Needless to say, this could be very bad.
• DocG 5y ago
  Not loading to me anymore https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hagerty.com/media/advice/a-few-things-to-know-before-you-steal-my-914/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hager...
• Bud 5y ago
  Hilarious, and also such a fun tour of the quirks of this old car.
• aspyct 5y ago
  Oh that's a good read. Thanks for sharing :)
• sbisson 5y ago
  Reminds me of my first car, a Mini Clubman estate with the fake woody panels on the side. The only thing you needed to know was that it had been re-engined with a hill-climb tuned Cooper S engine. Great on an island with a 40mph speed limit and too many rich folk with Ferraris and the like, as it could out accelerate them anywhere on the island. Sure it wouldn't go faster than 50, but that was fine as it got to that speed almost instantaneously.
  • cameronh90 5y ago
    > island with a 40mph speed limit Does it begin with J and end with Y? (I'm a London-based bean!)
    • kingcharles 5y ago
      Yowch. I thought that limit was only for the other Channel Islands. At least in say, the Isle of Man, you can get it nicely into triple digits on a regular basis.
  • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
    My friend in high school had a Mercury Capri like that. Dad was a drag racer, so that thing could beat anything up to 75mph. Then it'd rattle itself to bits. Left my MGB in the dust, of course
• fabioborellini 5y ago
  So, apparently there is no mandatory vehicle inspection in the US. Of course there isn't, it would violate the freedom to drive with an unroadworthy car.
  • krallja 5y ago
    It depends on the state. Most of the ones that do exist are concerned with things like “do you have seat belts? are there rear view mirrors? do the turn signals work? is the check engine light on?” Classic/antique vehicles are also often exempt.
    • technofiend 5y ago
      Imagine my surprise when this year my 1996 Toyota was suddenly an "antique" by state law. Yearly inspection for antique cars is a safety check as you described - does it have working windshield wipers, lights and seat belts, but no longer any emissions check.
    • AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
      There's no way that car would pass an emissions test.
      • rascul 5y ago
        Not all states test emissions, either.
        • iamtheworstdev 5y ago
          and some only do it for certain counties (Virginia)
        • londons_explore 5y ago
          I imagine this means cars with bad emissions end up living in states with no tests...
• quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > Depress the clutch as you would in any car, and pull the knob from its secure location out of first gear. Now you will become adrift in the zone known to early Porsche owners as “Neverland” and your quest will be to find second gear. Prepare yourself for a ten-second-or-so adventure. Do not go straight forward with the shift knob, as you will only find Reverse waiting there to mock you with a shriek of high-speed gear teeth machining themselves into round cylinders. I was confused by this until I searched for "Porsche 914 shift pattern" on Google Images. I guess it's a dog-leg gearbox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-leg_gearbox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-leg_gearbox).
  • bombcar 5y ago
    The Deuce and a Half has an even more interesting one, just when you think you've figured out the dog-leg you find the last two are reversed again. HN supports shift pattern unicode! Ⓡ②⑤ |–|–| ①③④
    • tyingq 5y ago
      If that sounds crazy, it is. The M35 2 1/2 ton truck shift pattern: https://live.staticflickr.com/4130/5082855966_efbf3c3f00_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/4130/5082855966_efbf3c3f00_c.j... Also, odd, but the Citroen M35 has a similar name and shift pattern, even though it's a car and completely unrelated. https://ranwhenparkeddotnet.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/m352bshift2bpattern.jpg https://ranwhenparkeddotnet.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/m352...
    • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      Patterns like those are really, really really common on truck transmissions. One rail is 1st/reverse. Another rail is 2nd/3rd and the last rail is 4th or OD and direct. Whether the "fore is a lower gear than aft" holds between the 2nd and 3rd rails is a function of whether or not it's a the pair of gears that constitute "forward gear on the right rail) will either be greater or less than 1:1 depending on if it's an overdrive transmission whereas the rear position on the right rail will always be direct for reasons that boil down to "that's the sensible way to build it". There's not much to "figure out" when you have a direct lever that goes into the shifter.
• clajiness 5y ago
  My Saab 900 Turbo feels like a brand new car now.
• ghostpepper 5y ago
  This writing is brilliant edit: just got to the author’s blurb at the bottom. He was an engineer on the original Miata, so it’s no surprise that he knows what he’s talking about.
  • agloeregrets 5y ago
    The irony being that the Miata is none of this. Notably reliable and easy to drive.
    • StillBored 5y ago
      I think part of the fun of 914's is how raw they are. Once you get all the individual car's eccentricities down its the same fun, but you feel like its all your secret on the good days when the car is working as intended. The fact that they are dog slow is made up by the fact that your sitting on this little motor making a huge racket. Its the "I must be going fast, given how much noise i'm hearing" thing.
    • ghostpepper 5y ago
      Beautifully analog too, if you get an older one
• raverbashing 5y ago
  Reading this description reminds me why I'm not a "car person" Several rabbit-holes in Linux have tested my patience less than that
  • michaelt 5y ago
    Your vehicle will never develop this number of issues on the day you buy it. You buy it with a trivial occasional issue that can be worked around, and the issue gradually starts happening more and more often and getting harder and harder to work around. And at the same time, another trivial issue will develop.... That's how my motorcycle went from 'needs to be kick-started' through 'sometimes it takes a few tries', through 'bump starting works though', to 'you can bump start it within 6 attempts', to 'you can bump start it within 6 attempts, as long as you didn't use the headlights too much last time you rode it'
• ehnto 5y ago
  Speaking of security through obscurity, my car is a 96 Nissan and it's had a few attempts on it. It's easy enough to steal, but it's getting hard enough for me to find replacement parts that I'd be surprised if thieves have everything, so I take some bits of the car with me if it's sitting for a while. I have a quick release wheel to deter the average opportunist from breaking my glass and ignition barrel, and with some wiring trickery and the bits I remove it's never going to start. It's aftermarket enough that stock parts won't help the thief, so unless they have a laptop, an aftermarket ECU, and a tuner handy, they probably won't get far. Sucks to have to bother with all that, but alarms have never helped me, and you just can't fix woeful 90s physical security. One attempt on my car was only foiled because when I park up at my girlfriends house, I remove some 90s era fuses you can't get anymore and take the box covers with me. A paperclip would work, but you've got to figure out that the specific fuses are missing first. It's not about being perfect when it comes to car security, it's about being too much of a pain in the ass, so they'll give up and move on. Just like bicycle security.
  • Breza 4y ago
    Modern cars have gotten so hard to steal that we're seeing more car jackings.
  • protomyth 5y ago
    It's not about being perfect when it comes to car security, it's about being too much of a pain in the ass, so they'll give up and move on. Yeah, my Dad had a Ford F-100 that had a gear shift that would come out. He drove it to work and took the gear shift inside and left it in his locker. Not the best location (a town in Oregon in the 70's), but he never had any trouble with someone stealing his ride out of the parking lot. I still remember the sound of the gas sloshing in the tank behind the seat.
    • city41 5y ago
      Nowadays it seems just having a manual transmission is enough to deter most thieves. I once took my car to get the oil changed and I had to drive it into and out of the bay as no employee knew how.
• kstrauser 5y ago
  My first car was a 68 Mustang, which was a gorgeous heap of junk. At one point, the clutch just completely gave up and wedged itself in the “engaged” position. To get the car moving, I had to kill the engine, put it in 1st gear, and turn the key to run the starter. This pulled the whole car into enough motion to get the engine going, then I could synchro shift all I wanted until it came time to stop again. For that cursed month, I got very good at finding routes that didn’t involve stop lights or long lines of slow moving traffic.
  • bombcar 5y ago
    I had a car where the shifter broke to the automatic transmission - it was simple enough to bypass the neutral safety switch and then I could just leave it in Drive all the time. Just had to make sure if parking to park on an incline if I wanted to be able to roll back out of the parking space. Eventually I cut a hole in the floor and welded a shifter direct to the transmission.
    • kstrauser 5y ago
      I love it. On the plus side, I learned so much about how cars work that I can fix a lot of things now. My personal peak was going from “uh-oh, the alternator on the Oldsmobile died” to having replaced it with a new one from the store in 43 minutes.
      • bombcar 5y ago
        Old cars had an accessible amount of "troubleshooting" available which greatly helps learn tinkering skills. New cars are substantially more reliable, but that same troubleshooting can be helpful but somewhat harder to learn I feel.
        • js2 5y ago
          Troubleshooting is a lot harder for a variety of reasons. Things are hidden away under plastic panels, the vehicles have a lot more electronics, and everything is fit into much tighter spaces. Still, between YouTube and enthusiast forums dedicated to whatever model car it is, you can usually do a lot. Typically if something goes wrong on your car, the same thing has gone wrong to a lot of other folks with the same car and someone has posted about it. If you're handy enough and have the right tools, an official manufacturer shop repair manual is what you really want. (Chilton is better than nothing, but you really want the manufacturer repair manual.) But... some things are just a pain in the ass w/o a lift and the right tools. Find a good independent mechanic for older cars (easier said than done) or just take it to the local dealer for cars still under warranty.
• gkoberger 5y ago
  This is one of my favorite styles of writing. I have absolutely no clue what this person is talking about and have no interest in cars, yet I read every single word. I love when people have such a deep knowledge of something that they can write an essay as unique and thoughtful as this. It reminds me of Kitchen Confidential, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman!, or any rant about British politics by David Mitchell.
  • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Depth of knowledge is impossible to assess for anyone that doesn't have similar depth in the same subject matter. The author could be bullshitting (he's not) but how would anyone who's not driven vehicles that are decades beyond their design life know?
    • gkoberger 5y ago
      In this context (a fun blog post), I disagree. I find it to be incredibly clear when someone is playing in a world they truly understand and love. Not to say one can't be hoodwinked from time to time, naturally, but for me it's not the "facts" that ring true. It's the joy and humor and love that is hard to fake.
      • Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        A really good author could probably make this up. Some types of writing require that ability. Imagine you're writing about a fantasy world where everyone drives giant Bloops instead of cars. You might have a few chapters written from the perspective of a master Bloop mechanic. She's been fixing Bloops for as long as she can remember; she considers it her life's calling and she loves every moment of her work. The author needs to communicate that to the reader in a believable way. But if you're not writing speculative fiction, what would be the point? It's probably harder than writing about something you know!
        • abstrakraft 5y ago
          This sounds like most of the aside conversations between author and reader in Douglas Adams' writing.
• linksnapzz 5y ago
  Oh this is lovely. As someone who has spent time inside a Karmann-Ghia convertible, I can smell the burning oil now....
  • lastofthemojito 5y ago
    Smell is the thing that gets me a lot of the time with classic cars too. I appreciate the design from another era - mechanical simplicity from when folks weren't concerned about maximizing efficiency, thin window frames and door pillars that would fare embarrassingly in a modern crash test, etc. Sure, it doesn't fit the standards of today, but that's why these older cars are so different - they're literally from a different era. Occasionally I'll go down an Internet rabbithole and imagine buying a 60s muscle car or series Land Rover or what have you. But then I'll be near a decades-old machine on the street and be overwhelmed by the smell of the exhaust. I think I must be more sensitive to it than others, but that mostly kills that idea for me. I guess I could try swapping in a modern, emissions-controlled drivetrain but that's a whole 'nother yak to shave.
    • denimboy 5y ago
      > Smell is the thing that gets me a lot of the time with classic cars too. I had a 1972 Triumph Bonneville which had a "tickler" button on each carb instead of a choke. That meant to start it up you would press each tickler button until a bit of gas shot out invariably on your hand but also the engine and the sometimes hot exhaust. Only after this ritual was performed could you jump on the kickstart (no electric start). So you end up smelling like gas. Q: Why to the British drink warm beer? A: Because Lucas makes electrics.
    • CRConrad 5y ago
      > mechanical simplicity from when folks weren't concerned about maximizing efficiency, thin window frames and door pillars that would fare embarrassingly in a modern crash test, etc. Immensely better for visibility, though. Which was actually a plus for safety compared to now, when a pedestrian can well be entirely hidden by your own windscreen pillar.
• cjrp 5y ago
  It's funny how much the starting procedure reminds me of a fairly-modern Cessna 172. If it ain't broke...
  • rmk 5y ago
    Welcome to General Aviation, where you can still experience vintage technology from the sixties and seventies! But also proof that a wimpy 180-HP thing is way more fun than a 500-HP BMW M3, simply because of the fact that it flies :)
    • cjrp 5y ago
      Totally. Although it’s amazing how different the displacement:horsepower ratios are. We’ve got 2L car engines producing 300bhp, and 6L aeroplane engines producing 160bhp!
• avgcorrection 5y ago
  This is an ad for “Insurance for people who love cars” (Hagerty).
  • mdoms 5y ago
    No, this is automotive journalism from a company that also sells automotive insurance. They are an excellent automotive journalism outfit. If you had any actual interest in cars you would know this. If you don't - maybe move on and read something else.
    • avgcorrection 5y ago
      Am I not allowed to read a piece on something which I am not sufficiently interested in? Like I guess many others, the “how to steal my car” (implying that it would be arduous) piqued my interest. Even though I am not interested in cars.
      • mdoms 5y ago
        You can read anything you want, but you left an ignorant comment.
  • RavingGoat 5y ago
    I think they make more from their YouTube content. I honestly had no idea they sold insurance before today but I love their YouTube videos.
• rackjack 5y ago
  This is a very funny article and the reveal that people have actually tried to steal the car was a perfect closer.
• bsenftner 5y ago
  I lived for over 20 years a half mile from the Bob's Big Boy restaurant with car service in Burbank, CA, where the S. California Classic Car Club has their weekly meet up and show case. Every single friday night, a dream series of amazing autos and the fanatics that keep them running show up and bait everyone with their jewels. My dad was a car dealer and I grew up with him restoring classics, so I know the dedication they require. Yet, a half dozen times I nearly talked myself into buying one of those beauties on the spot. Closest I came was a running, but yet to be fully restored Model A that some 50's teen made a hot rod. That 50's teen was the old man selling the car after it sat in his backyard for 40 years. Walking way from that was very difficult.
• orangepurple 5y ago
  I used to bother with mechanical junk like this when I was younger. I bought 10 cars under $1000 and repaired everything from shattered valvetrain to clogged fuel filters. These days if I wanted to drive a junk car with a good brand I would LS swap it and call it a day. It's more important to treat cancer before it metastasizes unlike the hospice care this person is giving that car. It troubles me to see people suffering with total junk just because it has a brand association.
  • floren 5y ago
    The LS swap is the equivalent of gutting a classic computer or piece of stereo equipment and jamming in a Raspberry Pi. Occasionally it's an improvement, sometimes the original parts were too far gone, but a lot of the time it's just lazy vandalism.
    • orangepurple 5y ago
      I agree with you. In the case of this article the original parts were too far gone. I do appreciate the physical aesthetics of older devices and would not vandalize functional and maintainable internals unless they caused extreme hardship.
    • sgt 5y ago
      Didn't Tyler Hoover (on YouTube) put an LS motor in a Porsche 911? He got some hate for that.
  • h2odragon 5y ago
    I don't doubt this person could restore that car to factory perfection or remake it into a modern masterpiece. Thats not what it's for tho. The clapped out heap of junk has an integrity, and dignity, worthy of respect. This car should most properly be exhibited on blocks in the front yard, surrounded by tall grass, possibly with a tree beginning to grow out of it somewhere. Between a trophy and a salute to both the soul of the machine itself and the many people who made it. "Well done thou good and faithful servant" It should be a habitation for dogs.
• interactivecode 5y ago
  Can I just say this is such a lovely site design. fast, clean and very readable. Bravo!
• cameronh90 5y ago
  This story reminded me of the time I was trying to exploit a web app as part of a bounty programme. Unfortunately the application was so unstable that any attempts to SQLI, or really send any kind of malformed request would simply crash the entire site for hours, presumably until an admin came and restarted the server. DoS wasn't included in the programme so I never won a bounty. I'm sure it could have been exploited, but it was simply so rickety and shoddy that I couldn't figure out how. Security through instability?
  • DonHopkins 5y ago
    Reminds me of the time at Sun when I tried to use XBugTool to report a bug against itself, and it got extremely angry at me, and trapped my input focus in the bug description text editor, where I vented my frustration. http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/xbugtool.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/xbugto...
  • JasonFruit 5y ago
    The application denies access to intruders by successfully ceasing to function.
  • Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    At a previous job, I had to do a penetration test on a platform, and I had the same thing. Any SQL errors would just crash the back end entirely and I'd have to wait for them to bring it back up manually, which could take a long time since I was on the US West coast and they were based in the UK. Among all the other security issues they had (easily gained a root shell via template injection, multiple XSS issues, CSRF, basically everything in the OWASP Top 10), to call their security posture Swiss cheese would be an understatement. A couple months after my test, the entire project was scrapped.
  • remram 5y ago
    I feel like there's an analogue to the CAP theorem for code, where you can have an un-exploitable application if you don't need it to keep running in the presence of unusual requests. Secure, Available, Unattended, choose any 2? You can have a secure&available app but you need to keep patching it. You can have an available&unattended app but it won't be secure. Or you can have a secure&unattended app, it will just need to crash a lot.
• jmkni 5y ago
  This was a really pleasant read, bravo!
• Damogran6 5y ago
  1970 olds cutlass: Stomp, hold at 15%, crank...then stab repeatedly until it can clear itself out and maintin an idle. Good for -20 to 95 F. 1966 Fleetwood 75 - If it's sat for more than three weeks: Stab to set choke. Crank, pausing every 10 seconds...it's got a LONG way to pump the fuel and you don't want to overheat the starter. Car will then, if driven weekly, start on the first half of the first crank every time. Battery has gone 14 months without a tender or external charge and continues to start the car just fine.
• redleggedfrog 5y ago
  That was really well written, and supremely entertaining.
• softwarebeware 5y ago
  What an awesome read! It brought back some nostalgia. In high school, I owned a 1976 Datsun 280Z which had some, shall we say, electrical problems. The ignition went out but somehow I had ascertained that by placing the blade of a screwdriver across two fuses it would (for mysterious reasons) turn the starter over and that was the only way to start the car.
• TacticalCoder 5y ago
  Don't know why this is top post: there must be some petrolheads on HN. This resonates with me: I've got an old, kinda beaten up, "sister" of that 914: an old Porsche 911. I've got it since 22 years and it's 33 years old atm (so 2/3rd of its life with me). Over the decades I only ever put oil and gasoline in that thing (ok, ok, the fuel pump died once and it was a 100 EUR part). Every single time I hook the battery up, it starts... While doing some blue smoke, granted. Although back from 1999 to 2004 I drove this beauty daily, since 2004 it's a garage queen: a piece of art that hardly ever hits the road. It's also prevented from seeing any kind of water: no rain water, no cleaning water (I much rather scratch the paint a tiny bit with microfibers towels and "dry cleaning" detailers or whatnots than risk having water idling for months in some sneaky spot and create corrosion). Original paint (hardly anyone still has this). First clutch (yup: same clutch since 33 years): this one is so rare it's actually problematic because my MY has a clutch that's not made anymore and there's some modification that needs to be done... But not a single mechanic know anymore what needs to be done to adapt a "still made" clutch on mine (basically a 1988/1989 clutch will not work on a 1987 if the 1987 is still on its first clutch for it hasn't seen the mandatory mod done). Tires are from... 2004 (yes it's illegal and, no, I don't care seen how I drive it). About twice a year, on a non-rainy day, the old lady starts and goes for a drive around the block at 20 mph. And then back into the garage. One day I should probably have it restored: the problem is these old Porsche engines (all 911 pre the 993 model) are notorious for their long bolts breaking when trying to adjust the timing. So a restoration means taking the engine out. That'd set me $10K easily I think with all that needs to be done. And in the end I'll have a polluting gas-guzzler which I'll feel bad using anyway. No really: old cars are also great as art pieces that hardly ever go out. Some people like to collect them, others like to drive them, others like to restore them (met a gentleman the other day whose passion was neither driving nor collecting but restoring incredible cars). I'm sure some even like to write about them! And don't get me started on my even crankiest old italian car! (this one won't shift into 2nd when the gearbox is cold, so it's 1st to 3rd gear during the first x minutes of driving... But being italian, of course, it's not starting anymore and needs to go see a mechanic). As I'm a recovering petrolhead I begin to see these more and more as art pieces: weird remnants of an insanely dangerous (and polluting) past.
  • 5y ago
• chiefgeek 5y ago
  Great article. My first car was a 1966 MG Midget (with a '71 engine). Gas gauge never worked. Voltage regulator broke at some point so it had to be push started (no hills in Florida made this more fun) and the first winter I had it I kept waking up with a headache. Finally traced it to a cracked exhaust manifold. First time I had driven around with the top up and I was getting gassed by CO. When the transmission failed, my buddy and I pulled the engine with an aluminum extension ladder (you couldn't just drop the tranny due to a frame piece across the trans tunnel). Had the tranny rebuilt, put it back together (with an engine lift) and it turned out they hadn't done it correctly. Rinse repeat....
• alkaloid 5y ago
  This makes me miss my 1971 VW Van. Learning to navigate the front-to-back, 3-meter-long transmission linkage made it to where I can drive literally any standard transmission vehicle on the planet. Well done!
• mberning 5y ago
  A pathological obsession with objectively terrible machines seems to be a very common character trait.
• rob74 5y ago
  Great article! Makes me wonder if in 40 years people will write about how to (not) get an old Tesla Roadster or BMW i3 going again? Although, rather than pumping the acceleration 4 times to get enough gas into the engine so it will start, that will probably begin with hacking the car's system so it allows you to start it...
  • bshep 5y ago
    as a guess it would go something like this: step 1. prepare a usb with files needed to jailbreak the car and be able to connect to your wifi step 2. setup a home network with dns/ntp and a reverse engineered tesla server that will authorize the car to work step 3 set date to reasonable values that the car will accept step 4 do some button dances to start the car from the usb … ill leave the rest to your imagination
    • BizarroLand 5y ago
      You will also need a Raspberry Pi 19 and a GSM transmit module to impersonate the old-timey cell towers they used to use. You can purchase one for about $3 or so and run this script...
      • StillBored 5y ago
        After you have hand built a new battery that fits it, built a LCD shim to connect to whatever the latest standard is, etc. Older cars are simpler, both in total, as in the requirements to retrofit replacement parts. Your average machine shop/etc will be able to keep that 914 running for the next hundred years. And when they stop selling gas, you can convert it to run on everclear.
        • mjhagen 5y ago
          Well, with the battery breakthrough of 2034 old Tesla's will run on two double-A's for 1000 miles.
  • technothrasher 5y ago
• ho_schi 5y ago
  It always entertaining when Americans speaking about manual transmissions as something mysterious. It is not, feet on pedal, switch, feet from pedal. Europeans are surprised seeing you manipulating the wipers to control the transmission. I consider personally most automatic transmissions horrible. The gear is either to high to overtake or so low that the engine is running with too much RPM. The only exception is the gear-less Multitronic[1] by Audi. Sadly replaced by DSG. Nasty rumors say VW did that because the Multitronic had no more issues and worked well ;) The DSG works somehow and the shifting is somehow acceptable. The automatic transmission Ford uses (e.g. C-Max) is horror for the driver, passengers and the engine. Adventurous people may proceed to double-clutching[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitronic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitronic [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_clutch_(technique) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_clutch_(technique)
  • imglorp 5y ago
    Sometimes double clutching helps with old American boxes. German ones have always been temperamental, compared to shaking a bag of wrenches. Japanese ones have always been smooth and fun. Source: I taught three teenagers to drive stick recently, and there are still teeth on the gears. Yay me!
  • BoorishBears 5y ago
    Most automatic transmissions are horrible because most cars are horrible. Good cars have good transmissions, regardless of transmission style. The ZF8 is an excellent transmission that's seen everywhere. PDK does justice to the most performant modern Porsches in a way that manuals struggle to keep up with. Even relatively small volume DCTs like the one in the 4C are pretty great these days.
    • ho_schi 5y ago
      ZF8 seems to be used by Audi only for cars sold in America? btw. ZF means Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen. Which is owned by the Zeppelin Foundation. Which was founded to support the built of Zeppelin Luftschiffe and social purposes. Weird story. And the Zeppelin Foundation was for a long time owner of Cherry. The company behind most mechanical keyboard switches. They should've kept that, growing business area - mechanical switches ;)
• ninly 5y ago
  Got it. Now, where is the car?
• bluetomcat 5y ago
  Almost any 30+ year-old vehicle is full of these special quirks requiring special "rituals". The annoying thing is that they are hard to fix and often require rare parts which are not easily available. I have a '95 Rover 216 Coupe which is mechanically very solid (Honda engine and running gear) and very well maintained, but the rest of the car is full of quirks caused by age deterioration. The numerous "rituals" include things like never closing your frameless door with the window down (a nasty cracking sound follows), manually pulling the tooth of the release latch before closing the boot, care when washing it so not to let water enter the spare wheel area permanently and cause rust, etc.
  • mdoms 5y ago
    I have a '88 Ford Falcon ute which is mercifully easy to fix and parts are plentiful. I absolutely recommend old cars to everyone, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread they build character. But I mostly recommend the ones with lots of parts. Not just factory but cars that had a strong aftermarket in their day.
    • bsder 5y ago
      > I absolutely recommend old cars to everyone, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread they build character. I don't think I hate another human enough to wish diagnosing an intermittent ground problem that only occured when the temperature fell below 30F on them. Character it may build, but even to this day I would trade that character for fewer knuckle scars and fewer hours with numb hands from the cold. I'll take my modern car that lasts until some idiot hits me and totals it.
• gedy 5y ago
  My brother had one of these about 20 years ago, and he eventually sold to a guy from other side of town. One day a few months later the car comes pulling into his front yard at high speed and does a spin out. The guy happened to be driving past and a front control arm snapped off due to rust, and he couldn't control the steering.
• cenazoic 5y ago
  All I could think about was how I should write something similar about my belovedly-wretched 1979 MGB. Lucas, the manufacturer of many MG parts, colloquially known as ‘the Prince of Darkness’ because of a tendency for the lights to suddenly stop working. The tell-tale crimp in many trunk lids, caused by attempting to shut it without disengaging the little rod that kept it open. Don’t bother locking the doors if you don’t want the expensive convertible top sliced through. The battery is behind the passenger seat. Having the reverse gear go out leads to an interesting perspective change while parking/driving. I ended up going to votech in auto mechanics because of this car, because I got so irritated about getting ripped off. Ah well, I love the damn thing. Even now, 10 years after I sold it.
  • technothrasher 5y ago
    You forgot the points based fuel pump that needs a bang or two with a mallet occasionally to keep running. Not that I will ever admit to owning an MG (or four) since I'm a Triumph guy at heart.
  • dugmartin 5y ago
    I wrote in another comment about my 1978 MGB. You missed a few more fun parts (they might have just been for my model year though): 1. The "springs" under the seats were bent wood slats (my dad and I put in new carpeting and found that one out when we removed the seats). 2. The heater was literally sliding a door to the engine way down the foot well. I remember several winter top down drives in the Midwest where my face and hands were frozen but my legs felt like they were being branded. 3. The manual choke. 4. The small cascade of water in your face when you drove in the rain and took a corner. 5. The electric 5th that seemed to break every few months. All good memories though.
• danboarder 5y ago
  I regularly drive a 1973 VW westy (bus camper van) and it has these same type of quirks! For me they are all second nature after having the vehicle for over 10 years. I one had to leave it in a parking lot and later have it towed while I was at work. The tow truck driver could not figure out how to get it started even with me walking him through it on the phone! The ignition is 'wiggly' where it won't start until you jiggle the steering wheel to allow the key to turn to start the car. Also a screwdriver will work fine (if you wiggle the steering wheel just right while attempting to turn the ignition). So ya, Similar quirks :). I love our westy and usually take it to the beach to surf. It also has an old air-cooled 914 pancake engine in it.
  • rozap 5y ago
    I have a 74. My wife used it to go camping and I guess I didn't explain the starting procedure well enough because it was second nature. She ended up having to get a jump after flooding it and killing the battery. Oops.
• browningstreet 5y ago
  This reminds me of the best writing from Car and Driver magazine. They still do things like this and their annual Top 10 is rich in droll, hilarious car writing.
• joshu 5y ago
  This doesn’t sound too bad. But I also race in a 1960s british race car.
• swamp40 5y ago
  Fantastic writing. A lot of 1970's manual transmission cars were like this. I had an early 70's AMC Gremlin. The shift knob was just a vertical rectangular rod. The transmission linkage were two parallel horizontal rods with a notch cut in each. The vertical rod just floated between these, and you had to pull left or right and slide back or forth until you found one of the notches - then once you were engaged, you could push or pull the linkage to go into a gear. When the knob drifted, you really had to have a visual in your head of where the notches were and what gear you where in.
• legitster 5y ago
  > Norman Garrett was the Concept Engineer for the original Miata back in his days at Mazda’s Southern California Design Studio. hahaha. This whole time I was thinking "I know the car is lovely, but this is why people love Miatas"
  • agloeregrets 5y ago
    Seriously, same thought. The Miata is this but without anything after the first paragraph. It starts and runs instantly, is fuel injected, brakes well, and the transmission is notably direct feeling. It is the feeling of a good day in the 914 every day (and thus worse, because you do not know the bad days). I guess this guy went though hell to define such a great car.
    • legitster 5y ago
      It really goes to show what makes the Miata so good. Even through this satire, you could tell this guy really loves his 914.
  • Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    Miata stands for "Miata Is Always The Answer" Reliable, fun, and economical. The only thing they lack is practicality, being a two-seater with a small trunk. But if you don't have to worry about carrying kids or cargo, they're great cars!
    • HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
      Never drove a Miata, but I have a Nissan 350Z and the wife has been able to squeeze 4 adults (including herself) into it. I still can't imagine that someone willingly scrunched themselves into the hatchback under the strut brace. I guess when you're drunk and only have one safe way home, whatever works, works.
  • noduerme 5y ago
    Miatas are great, but I think the Fiat version is even more fun.
• jeffrallen 5y ago
  I need to print this out and put it in my 1974 VW camper, for my kids to read when I kick off.
• nixass 5y ago
  Car being manual is good protection measure in the USA
• ChuckMcM 5y ago
  Ah yes, the much maligned (legitimately!) Porsche 914. In high school a friend of mine "scored" one of these "for a steal" from a used car dealer. It managed to wear out the enthusiasm of even a testosterone fueled high school car enthusiast! He sold it his senior year, for not quite as much as he paid for it, and had invested probably $8,000 in various repairs and improvements over the two years he owned it. Quite the legacy.
• todd8 5y ago
  There wasn't very good public transportation to Wellesley College from Boston in 1970 so I borrowed a friend's car to pick up my date. The car was old enough even then to have a crank handle stowed behind the driver's seat for starting the car when you weren't parked at the top of a hill. That date didn't go so well!
• alx__ 5y ago
  Remind me of trying to get a dev environment setup at this one company 5 years ago. The list of troubleshooting items was longer than the list to get it running :D
• deltarholamda 5y ago
  I laughed out loud several times at this. It's kind of sad that a lot of younger folks won't have this kind of experience. Muscling a 1973 Ford F150 around with no power steering, I learned many, many things about driving. Having to do hill starts with a 3-on-the-tree, I learned many, many more. A recalcitrant, finicky, or otherwise nearly broken car is a source of much distress, but also character building. And often a source of many fond rememberances--albeit far, far in the future.
  • tclancy 5y ago
    Ha, yeah, with new cars there’s no reason to try to talk things out and reason with them because there’s no sense they are just being stubborn.
    • deltarholamda 5y ago
      >with new cars there’s no reason to try to talk things out and reason with them because ...because there's a solid chance the car will talk back. Welcome to the future! Your car will sass you, and you will like it!
  • Corrado 5y ago
    Oh my Dad's old Chevy stepside was a bear to drive. That 3-on-the-tree gave me fits. On the upside, I can drive just about any car on Earth now without too much trouble.
• iancmceachern 5y ago
  I had a friend that drilled a hole in the fender and put in another key operated switch there. Simple but effective. No one stealing a car is looking around for other switches.
• tibbydudeza 5y ago
  I am rather glad that modern cars late 90's are so depressingly reliable and lacking in "character" and just works when I turn the key and all they needs is fuel, oil change, filters and fluids at intervals. I would choose an Audi/BMW if I wanted that sort trepidation in my life.
  • disiplus 5y ago
    i have a subaru that im not sure will start (something is draining the battery), or when it starts that i will have enough oil.
  • alar44 5y ago
    I would say for the most part, that's how all cars were up until the 90s. Post 2000 everything is computerized and there's not a ton a shade tree mechanic can do beyond swapping out parts.
    • technothrasher 5y ago
      At least if you know how to use a code scanner, newer cars are so much better at telling you what is wrong with them. Though it does take some skill and experience to know the difference between what code(s) tripped and what is actually wrong, as often a code that trips is well downstream of what part has failed. But it's amazing the amount of data you can pull out of a car using an Autel reader or similar.
  • mdoms 5y ago
    I read your first sentence and was about to regale you with the reliability stories of my 2009 BMW 335i, but I see you have that covered in your second sentence. I mercifully sold that car just a few weeks ago and it's like having a weight off my back not seeing it in the driveway every day.
  • pnathan 5y ago
    that was my basic impression. I drove an '89? Izuzu and a '85? Mitsubishi as my first two cars in the mid '00s; they were pretty "just works" too, barring some repairs. Nothing this crotchety. I now drive a '21 Camry and man, it's just nice. Things work. I mean, I don't mind pulling things apart, but it's like, do I really want to run Gentoo constantly if I don't budget 4-6 hours/mo to maintain it? (no)
• jonsully 5y ago
  This has got to be one of the very best and most hilarious articles I've read this year. Bravo, sir.
• roydivision 5y ago
  Wonderful piece of writing, thanks Norman Garrett.
• AdrianB1 5y ago
  20 years ago I lived in an area considered not very safe; the guy in the apartment below was a cop and thieves broke into his car twice and in his house once. I had an older car, so I always left it unlocked, including the trunk: no problem. I also had a motorcycle that I left with the key in the ignition a few times, so various neighbors brought me the key a few times until they learned to leave it there. These were probably the only vehicles in the entire block of flats that were not touched by thieves - maybe they checked the trunk of the car a few times, found nothing interesting and left. The car was not worth stealing, the bike was not easy to ride.
• rmk 5y ago
  Ha! Nice piece of writing. What's the software equivalent of this car? I've heard loads of complaints from Oracle software users (database excepted; it appears to be a genuinely great product).
• zdwolfe 5y ago
  This was a joy to read.
• mdoms 5y ago
  Hagerty is about the only automotive journalism left that's worth reading and I am so grateful they are still around (and still improving at a clip). I you have even a cursory interest in cars their Youtube channel is excellent. Jason Cammisa joined then Hagerty team last year and is now producing the absolute best car content on the web. I doubt anyone from Hagerty is reading this but genuinely thank you for making the car content you do. Automotive journalism sometimes feels like a dying industry but you give me hope.
• everybodyknows 5y ago
  > The dual Webers don’t have chokes and you’ll be squirting fuel down the barrels with the accelerator pumps for the necessary priming regime. The engineering Puritan will want to know that the Webers are a retrofit, a hack for escape from the factory's refractory -- but cutting edge tech in the 70s! -- VW electronic fuel injection. The EFI "brain" was a box the size of a small modern laptop, stuffed with individual transistors, inductors, capacitors and resistors. No one in North America, it seemed, had any idea how to diagnose an internal fault. The owner's options were to buy a secondhand brain taken from a junked car, presumably there for some other reason, or the Webers. Junkyard brains were refundable, but the several hours installing, testing, and possibly uninstalling were not, so careful deliberation was in order. Access to the brain, like most engine compartment work on the 914, demanded the sort of agility, strength, and determination required of large-animal veterinarians, with access for most tasks from underneath, wedged as it was in a sort of triangular gap below and behind the seats and ahead of the rear trunk and transmission.
  • winrid 5y ago
    I had to diagnose an issue with said brain on a car from 1982. Previous owners could not figure out the issue. The car's engine would rev "bounce" at idle like it had a big cam, but it didn't go away when driving, making driving not very fun. So I got the Scirocco for dirt cheap. I realized on day that if you opened and closed the hood a couple times, the issue would fix it self, and it was very repeatable. I realized the computer is mounted next to the hood hinge! I got lucky and just blindly resoldering all the joints in the computer fixed it. We later swapped that 400k mile motor setup to a modern turbo motor with a sequential gearbox, and it's a rally car now. :) (not super important to story but the "ECU" from 1982 was a bit more modern, Jetronic as it was called was "only" roughly the size of a few old TI-82s).
    • drewzero1 5y ago
      I love the K-Jetronic mechanical injection system in my '83 SAAB -- only because I've never had to mess with it very much. Plus, unlike a lot of the more obscure things on that car, the K-Jet system was also used on VWs, Porsches, and Mercedes, so there's a lot of info out there. A lot of this article rings true for cars I've had (and some I still have) but I tend toward cars that are simpler mechanically and tend to fail more fundamentally: the keys all lock fine but the suspension mounts all rust out. This year has been an exercise in chasing leaks (gas, brake fluid, coolant, and now ATF) between my two daily classics. All I need is power steering fluid and I can complete the whole set!
• MauranKilom 5y ago
  Today I learned that the literal "giving up the ghost" translation of the German "den Geist aufgeben" is correct, even though it just screams "false friend". Huh!
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• paulpauper 5y ago
  Just put it on a flatbed lol
• zw123456 5y ago
  This reminds me of back when I was at Bell Labs back in the 1980's and there was a "user manual" of how to crash the Unix OS on the PDP11's in our lab. The idea being if you just tell people how to do it they won't try to show how clever they were by doing it. Also, it was a warning what not to do, but it also discouraged anyone from thinking they found a new flaw or whatever.
• itomato 5y ago
  Haha, joke's on you. As a reformed air-cooled VW enthusiast, these are my natural driving tendencies.
• atarian 5y ago
  The ending was great. Impressive that a thief actually got that far.
• JPKab 5y ago
  The car has a manual transmission. The odds of a car thief in 2022 in a modern American city being old enough to be in the age cohort that knows how to drive stick are minimal.
• BubbleRings 5y ago
  Great writing. Makes me want to revisit Hitchhikers Guide.
• Terry_Roll 5y ago
  Well if he needs help with his 914 and can ship it to Europe, Von Schmidt have done a really nice job with this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzVr4cpNC58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzVr4cpNC58 www.schmidt-oss.com/von-schmidt-eng/ Even electric motor conversions in older cars are coming along as seen here https://youtu.be/qpcSF1kRcFY?t=55 https://youtu.be/qpcSF1kRcFY?t=55
• Animats 5y ago
  A friend of mine still has a Porsche 914, in a barn in Northern California. It hasn't moved in years. Her son, who was really into cars, once wanted to restore it. He's now an design engineer with Toyota and has more old vehicles than he needs, including a 1958 Ford Fairlane Skyliner with the roof that disassembles and stores itself in the trunk. If someone really wants to buy the old Porsche, send me a message.
• Melatonic 5y ago
  These things are an absolute BLAST to drive but you also feel like you are literally driving a tin can - I do NOT want to think about what would happen if you got into an accident with a larger vehicle like an SUV Met a guy that threw a V8 in one of these - must have been absolutely insane.
• rebuilder 5y ago
  When I was a kid, we had a succession of dubious used cars, at least two of which were Ladas. They were fine cars - spare parts were easy to get and you needed them often. One time, someone broke into one of the Ladas. No problem for us, it was hard to start even with a key and the would-be auto thief apparently couldn’t get it going. Who needs an alarm?
• schmichael 5y ago
  > Do not become emboldened by your progress I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to stick this into docs or a tutorial someday. What a brilliant line that really captures that thrill of a newcomer to a problem feeling like they've accomplished something only to find the worst is yet to come.
• HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  > starter is too weak to crank the clutch-transmission input shaft assembly with any success [giggle] This reminds me of putting my Toyota 4x4 (Hilux) in 4-Low, First gear, pressing the Clutch Start Cancel switch and turning the ignition key, making it an electric vehicle for a few seconds. The starter was powerful enough to move the truck uphill in that gear on its own until the engine started.
• aplkorex 5y ago
  THANK YOU for this! It's been a while since I've laughed out loud while reading an article on the web. As an owner of an ancient Land Rover, I feel this, physically. Excellent writing.
• acjacobson 5y ago
  My family kind of prides itself on driving manual cars even though you have to go to extra effort to buy them new in the U.S. these days. Once my Dad brought one of them into a mechanic for an oil change and the guy asked 'How do you like your anti-theft device?' My Dad was a bit puzzled because there was no extra alarm or device he could think of, but the mechanic meant the stick shift. Apparently manual cars are now so uncommon that your average car thief doesn't know how to drive one away - so it's kind of a surprising that someone got this 914 as far down the road as he did.
  • warmwaffles 5y ago
    I've seen some guys just pull the fuse out for the ECU/PCM on the vehicle as the anti-theft device. The thief will start to crank and crank but never get it started. It should draw attention to them and they'll just grab what they can and leave.
  • fhood 5y ago
    No manual option on the mazda3 now. That was the biggest punch in the gut.
• GekkePrutser 5y ago
  This sounds a lot like my first car. I won't mention the model for security reasons :D (This topic is going to be a goldmine for hackers!) It's funny because I had very similar issues. In my case the gearshift link bar fell out of the bottom twice. Both cases I was parked in a high-security area at work and I had get special authorisation for the road service. To much amusement of the security staff, especially the second time which was about a week after the first. Also, the lights would not auto switch off when turning off the ignition (no fancy newfangled electronics there!), but my colleagues were willing to give me a push once a week or so. All the above did give my car a very special reputation at work and it was the butt of many jokes. It also had a manual choke which caused me to empty many a fuel tank unnecessarily. I carried a 5L jerrycan around after the first time I found out what happens if you forget to switch the choke off after starting. With the choke off it would go more than 100km on this reserve! The ignition switch was also so far gone it could be turned with a teaspoon, but unfortunately this worked both ways. Sometimes going over a bump in the road would flick it off. So for this reason I hotwired the foglight switch (which was rarely allowed to be used in the Netherlands, you may only use it in basically undrivable conditions) as an "ignition on" switch to bridge it. In this sense it was like a modern car which you can turn on with a button. For the foglight itself I just had two wires hanging under the dash which I could simply connect when needed. No need for this modern "switch" nonsense. There was also no power steering nor braking and the engine (1.0L) was so small you could literally set foot inside the engine compartment (standing on the road as it didn't have a bottom). My father hated me for braking so hard when I drove his car, but on mine you really had to pump it if you had any hope of stopping. Steering was super light though, even without power steering. Probably because the car weighed practically nothing, and the tyres could use a bit more grip. When I had people sitting in the back I literally had trouble steering at high speeds because there wasn't enough weight on the front. So I would limit myself to 80km/h on the motorway in those cases to be safe. It did have no trouble reaching 120km/h though, to my surprise. I also had to make sure not to fuel up above 80% or so because when splashing it leaked somewhere around the neck of the fuel filler pipe and the smell was horrible. Still, it was MY car. My friends bought me a bumper sticker saying "Laugh all you want, this one is paid off!". It was also special in the sense that it was the only car I've had where the (Sony) stereo was worth more than the car itself. It was one of the first with a CD player. Not that it was particularly expensive, but you probably gathered that the car was even cheaper. PS: Funnily enough it passed the safety inspection twice. I did have to wire the foglight switch back up before the test though O:-)
• gabereiser 5y ago
  I love this. It brings back memories of my first car. A ‘86 GT with a horse logo. I remember driving with my sister one day, explaining all the things that are wrong with it and my ingenious work arounds to justify it. Then her door swung open taking a turn too fast and she refused to ever ride in the car again. This was a great read, thank you.
• SLWW 5y ago
  The section about starting the car rings true for just about every old car I own. My Dart, an ol' 4 door from '69 has this really cool thing were in the event you do get the cruel idea to wake her up on a cold morning; you'll end up doing three sets of ignition on, wait 3-5 seconds, ignition off, pump the gas pedal a few times (first set 20, then 10, then 5) and if you haven't deviated from this formula you should be able to start the engine. After about 3 seconds she will be quietly resting once more, then you can attempt to wake her again, this time once you hear the engine come to life you need to ease onto the accelerator, and hold it at an obnoxiously loud "idle" for about 1-2 minute. Then from there you will put her in first, and while still tickling the accelerator, release the brake slowly (this girl is a TorqueFlite auto transmission). Though i love that car because i drove it as my daily for several months during the cold winter... it had no heater, no defrost and no hope of going highway speeds safely (though I have flown at 80 mph before, down a hill in neutral, that was terrifying), you have to bleed the brakes once every two months or she will try to kill you.. and she's unapologetically mine, for fear of the guilt I would incur if i sold her to someone that she accidentally ends up killing and my undying love for a car that usually got me to where i need to be (12 mpg, 91 oct).
• nilsbunger 5y ago
  The article and the picture at the bottom exude that this guy is doing exactly what he loves.
• unnouinceput 5y ago
  "Thank you for all the tips, but they won't be necessary. I'll just come with my tow truck, and get it up and I'm gone in 60 seconds. This vintage gem will fetch a great price once restored properly. Signed, The Thief"
• civilized 5y ago
  So.... is this car a good car that's just way too old, or were Porsches of this vintage not good to begin with?
• siverson914 5y ago
  Never thought I'd see a 914 article at the #1 spot on Hacker News! :) Vroooom!
• drewg123 5y ago
  My first car was a 22 year old (at the time) 1964 Triumph TR4 that my dad and I found in a barn. A lot of the issues in this 914 were present on my car as well. My car had a minor engine oil leak, and the oil would drip onto the exhaust system and fill the cabin with smoke. I remember when the brakes went out and I drove the car ~25 miles with nothing but the parking brake. The best was when I got out of this tiny car with manual everything and drove the land-yacht Pontiac Parisienne we used for driver's ed in highschool. Its brakes were so sensitive, and I was so used to having to use a LOT of force to stop the TR4, that the first few times I'd stop the car everybody's seatbelt would lock up.
• jacquesm 5y ago
  Very recognizable :) I had a Citroen DS that had locks that were so bad that it was pointless to try to lock it, and getting it started required 10 steps or so and getting one wrong meant you weren't driving that day (or at least, not until the excess fuel had evaporated away again). Probably more secure than the class-5 alarm on my current car :)
• Havoc 5y ago
  Fine writing. Frankly I'm more intrigued by the fact that this seems to have gotten an easy #1 spot on hn. Writing about sketchy clutches on old cars does not generally attract wide hn acclaim. I'd love to hear opinions as to what made the difference...clearly something here is different.
  • probably_wrong 5y ago
    I think it's a combination of factors: it is technical, it is funny, it is well written, it resonates with anyone who had to deal with "quirky" hardware, car or not (a.k.a. "that PC that only boots if you press and hold CapsLock"), plus the fact that the weekend is almost here.
    • CRConrad 5y ago
      I think you just thoroughly disproved your HN user ID.
  • shakezula 5y ago
    It’s funny you say that cause this screams HN content to me. I’m a long-time project car builder and this post strikes all the chords of a labor of love. Clever content, technical concepts but written in plain english, relishing in the almost hostile user experiences that some engineering can produce. It smacks of everything HN is to me.
• abruzzi 5y ago
  914s had an engine and transmission from the VW Bus. Since the VW Bus had a rear engine setup the shift rod was straight into the very front of the transaxle. IIRC, when they reversed the transmission to put the engine in front of the transmission, the shift input eas now in the very rear so the shift rod started in the middle/front of the car, had to transit back, around the engine and transaxle assembly then completely reverse into the what was now the very rear of the transmission. Which is why the 914s were notorious for sloppy transmissions. Later years of 914 made a change in the transmission so the shift rod entered the side of the transmission, which probably helped a little.
  • denimboy 5y ago
    914 had a type 4 engine which it shared with the type 2 VW bus. However the transmission was completely different from the bus. The 914 had 5 speeds and the bus only had 4. A lot of the article is about "you'll never find 2nd" which is in large part to the weird shifting pattern. Reverse is where first usually is, first is where second usually is and the rest are in a kind of off by one pattern from there. This was actually considered a feature since supposedly it allows the driver to make the shift from first to second faster. The vagueness of the stick is very true and something every 914 owner can relate to. Those first couple weeks you spend some time hunting for the right slot. I went from first to fifth many times before a muscle memory was developed and I didn't have to think about it.
    • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
      Not terribly odd, either. My 46 Dodge truck has the same shift pattern, albeit with just 3 forward gears.
    • Corrado 5y ago
      Yea, I drove my 914 for 3-4 years before selling it. I didn't remember having trouble shifting until I read the article and your response here, then it all came flooding back. Those first couple of weeks were "exciting" but after that it just became a normal part of driving the car. No wonder nobody wanted to drive my car.
• frxx 5y ago
  Sounds like the car in this state should be illegal to drive for several reasons. I'm glad that in many countries the cars need to be checked every two years.
• sethammons 5y ago
  This was fun. It reminds me of my first truck that my uncle gifted me in sometime around the year 2001: a mid '80s GMC S-15 light pickup truck. The starter did not work. This meant parking on a hill always and 'pop starting.' You put it in 2nd gear, get a good rolling start, then crank the engine. Be mindful to not run out of runway. This was alleviated after a year or two when a friend of my mom showed me how to arc the starter directly. Pop the hood, take a screw driver and connect the two opposing bolts on the starter. A shower of sparks and a section of screwdriver missing later and, boom, a running engine. It was true freedom not having to park on a hill anymore! You couldn't start or stop too fast. The bench seat's lock failed, so the entire bench seat would shift forward or backward if you changed velocity too quickly. A tight seat belt helped by using you to keep the seat back. The driver side window went halfway down... usually. You had to press against it just right and you had to pull up on it to help the hand crank lift it. Best to just leave it up. Onto the instruments. On a hard left hand turn, the radio and dashboard would light up ... until the end of the turn. Otherwise, no dash lights and no radio. The other problem with the left hand turn was that if it was too sharp, the keys would fly from the ignition and land on the passenger floor board. But that was ok because the truck would continue to run. Turning on the headlights would cause the gas gauge to drop to zero. This was a problem at night since due to the lack of dash lights. To check the gas, you had to turn off the headlights and use a flashlight to see the fuel level. Thinking of levels of fluids: oil. There was no dip stick and it burnt oil. So you mostly guessed daily how much oil to add based on experience. Somehow it never occurred to me to, you know, purchase a dip stick. I grew up poor, you didn't just buy things. And I didn't think to make a makeshift one because I was inexperienced at life with little guidance. One night in 16 degree fahrenheit, icy weather, and not dressed for said weather, the truck gave up the ghost. I didn't estimate my remaining oil correctly and seized the engine. The wrecker gave me $35 for the truck and drove off into the sunset the following day.
• HNHatesUsers 5y ago
• kazinator 5y ago
  > oil vapors are exhumed from the cabin Very creative malapropism!
• eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I think my 87 Jetta (purchased in 2002, died and abandoned 2000ish miles or so moving 3000 miles US coast to coast) very closely resembled these remarks. Of course no one wanted to steal it. But I appreciate the author’s portrayal! And it was a really fun weird way to feel like I’ve owned a Porsche!
• stblack 5y ago
  Great article indeed. Inquiring mind wants to know, push rods or overhead cams? According to Wikipedia, the 914 could have either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_914#Technical_specifications_of_the_standard_versions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_914#Technical_specific...
• temporallobe 5y ago
  In the U.S., we have a joke that the only anti-theft device you’ll ever need is a manual transmission.
  • SixDouble5321 5y ago
    Idk, my manual Honda was stolen after living near Seattle for about a month. Luckily it wasn't valuable enough to chop.
• dghughes 5y ago
  I like the 914 it's much nicer than the 924 since the 914 is a boxer the 924 a inline 4. A Dino Ferrari would another good choice small displacement short stroke V6s are sexy.
• eek2121 5y ago
  FYI his car was stolen last week. Successfully I might add*.
• JBiserkov 5y ago
  “We use cookies to personalize your experience, to provide social media features and to analyze our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners.“ This was the only text that was visible below the title and author byline.
• eichin 5y ago
  > exactly 4 pumps > start > exactly 2 pumps ... does this sound to anyone else like he's basically got a Permissive Action Link protecting his car?
• indus 5y ago
  I love the upcoming downturn in tech, more posts like these would trend ;-)
• porknubbins 5y ago
  I love this because I just realized pretty much all my vehicles small engine equipment have quirks that they only start up if you know the correct procedure, yet I consider them to be 100% working. Not to mention my pc's boot menu which defaults to a dead operating system after 10 seconds, that I have been too lazy to figure out how to reorder.
• dclowd9901 5y ago
  Beautiful treatise of the wretched joys of owning and driving an old car. What I love is how all of these foibles become second nature to the ownership. This is what car people call “character”, much the same way you might realize you need to warn one friend before you introduce them to another. Though it’s usually my goal to chase all manner of unreliability out of a car I own (I confess, I absolutely love just getting in a car and driving, no fuss, no muss), there is a pang of sadness that comes with knowing I’ve made it that much more reliable, and frankly, boring.
• caycep 5y ago
  At this point, it is not unreasonable to pay the thief for all his hard work in stealing the car
• mikeabraham 5y ago
  Well done.