RHD Crayford 914s

Hi Brett Johnson is doing an update on his 914 authenticity book and I am sending pics of my own 914-6 He has also asked me to do a short story on the Crayford RHD 914s I will be taking some pics of Stephen's '73 car here in Sydney shortly I believe there were 11 914s converted by Crayford in the early 1970s Is anyone aware of any more of these cars currently here in AUS ? cheers Dennis ☺️

dennis, you probably already know all this? there were two crayfords cars that came in. both in 1973 and 2.0L fours. the ADRs (emission controls) prevented anything after that time as the cars were sourced from uk porsche distributors allied to crayfords. (theoretically a us market car might have complied but crayfords cars were europe spec sourced.) There was a metallic green one.   I knew the late (2nd) owner.  a man called brian c.  he had the car in melb. for many years through the 80s and 90s. back then the car was in beautiful condition.   i think i last saw it in the early 2000s.   i heard it ended up in nsw.   brian obtained it from the original owner who imported it, a sydney dentist if my memory is correct. the other car was a white one, which also originally resided in nsw.  it had non factory alloys from the beginning.  during the 80s that car ended up in victoria.   i saw it a couple of times.  i tried to buy it as a young man in the early to mid 80s.  it was for sale with a frankston car dealer from memory (or somewhere down that way).  i last saw that car in about 1987.   no idea where it is now.  that car was featured in a modern motor article in the 70s. i took a lot of interest in 914s back then.   dating from when i was about 13 in 1973 and saw what i think might have been the hamilton car parked in bourke st.  ended up with one when i lived in chicago in the late 80s and brought it back. still have it.   1974, 914 1.8.   second owner.   40,000 mile.   i love it.  putting it back on road at moment after hibernating for 15 years in storage.   i converted the car in the early 90s after getting back to aus.   a crew in moorabin did it for me who were converting LHD MGs for the japanese market.  they did a very good job and used (i am told) a dash moulding sourced from a crayford mould that had come to australia in the 70s.  that was the story.  unsure who supplied them the dash mould, but someone had it.   the conversion was modelled on brian c's green car as the reference. there were a couple of other cars floating around in the 80s in melbourne, but were not crayford cars.   a couple of german vw mechanics in abbotsford had one 4 each and later one of them brought a 6 in from germany.   it was originally brown metallic from memory.   there was also the red hamilton six assessment car which brian c also owned for a time.   there was one other i remember and have not seen since i think probably 1979 or 1980 which was an apple green 914 1.7 that used to run around melbourne with dusseldorf (?) plates on it and was still LHD.   it was eventually converted someone told me, but converted badly without firewall modifications.   you would have needed very short legs to drive it? there are of many more 914s here now.   those that did get converted (as you really had to do in the 90s if you wanted to register them) probably have the same dashboard moulding that went into mine which i was led to believe was a crayford sourced item.

ps i can recall the late brian c telling me about a RHD 914 he came across in hong kong in a back street in the either the late 70s or early 80s. he said it was rough but it was a crayfords car.   so at least one of those crayfords cars ended up there.   whether it still exists who can say.   914s were not really valued in that era.

WP thanks for your stories I will be taking some pics of the green car tomorrow for my Crayford story there were 11 Crayford conversions done according to the invoice list I have one to Malta,one to Jebson in Hong Kong and the last in 1974 to AUS all the rest were first sold in the UK no chassis numbers on the invoice list unfortunately the one in Modern Motor April 1075  must have been a UK one subsequently brought in - a mystery car ? I am contacting a Crayford owner in the UK shortly for further info - I just wanted to beat the bushes here just in case thanks for your response cheers Dennis 😀 ps - the green car at last years PC NSW concours

thanks for photo of brian's old car dennis.  brings back great memories of the man. brian was the original mr. 914 here in melbourne. its great that car is still well preserved. good to know i did have a correct story about the hong kong car.   this thread has twigged my memory.  brian said it was either in hong kong or macua where he came across it.  its thirty years ago that all those stories were told to me. brian said there were a couple of left hand drive cars in tahiti too.   french spec.  but they would be rust powder by now. the white 914 is perhaps a mystery.     last time i saw it in the 80s it was still as per modern motor article with the aftermarket alloys with the graphic decals on the rocker covers.   it was a crayfords car.   same dash as the green one, same stitching.   also i remember lifting the carpet in the pedal box and it had the same crayfords pop rivetting to the modified fire wall.   i am trying to remember the story.   i think it had been owned by a radio dj who had driven it down a bit, but it was still in ok condition.   thats when it was for sale in frankston.   if i am not mistaken and my memory isn't wrong it sold for $20,000 back then, in mid 80s, which was a good sum of money for one.   an old guy bought it (an old guy then) and he turned up at a few day of the volkswagen events.    and that was probably the last time i saw it.   probably 86 or 87. so the green car is probably it as far as direct orders from crayfords to aus.   i remember brian telling me, it was owned by a sydney dentist.  brian was in sydney at some time in the 70s and saw the car.  left a note under the wiper.   2 years later the guy rang him and told him he was selling the car and brian had first dibs.   brian bought it after photos were sent in mail.    he told me guys in his office were cracking jokes there were no photos sent of the right hand side of the car.    it was fine, in perfect condition.   he drove it straight back to melbourne with the top off overnight on the hume.   which back in those days was not a freeway. anyway it lives.  just as well.   an important car.

letter from original owner of green car? other stuff

slightly off topic, since not a crayford conversion, the surviving hamilton 914/6 is still here in melbourne. i see if from time to time. i went with brian to collect that car when he purchased it from alan hamilton back in the early 90s.   it was at the time porsche took over the australian operation from hamiltons.   that car had remained with hamilton since it came in.   it was converted by hamiltons in their workshop.   i think the guy who converted it is still alive.   again its hard to remember the detail of all the stories.   it could be considered the only other semi official conversion. i spent a bit of time with brian in his garage going over that car when he first got it.   hamiltons took a different approach to conversion.   they cut the metal dash up and rewelded it back together in rhd form.  they did the firewall alterations and reduced the fuel tank size.   they installed speedster seats.   they omitted the rear bulkhead pad in the passenger compartment.    they installed an under-dash centrally mounted pull out speedster or 356 handbrake.  given it was an early car, a 1970 model i think, it had the fixed passenger seat etc which made the interior cosmetics so expensive in the original crayfords conversions.   later cars with two moveable seats were a little easier to convert, (and maybe slightly cheaper?), which might partly explain the green car that came in here late in the model run. after brian obtained the ex hamilton 6 he rebuilt the interior to match the green car, with two adjustable 914 seats, padded bulkhead and floor mounted chassis rail handbrake.    installed sway bars and other suspension upgrades. the hamilton car was a unique special order.   came with a 4 speed hill climb ratio gear box direct from the factory.   thats never been documented i believe.    the one 914 with a four speed box ordered from the factory.   there were other funny things about that car too.   to some extent it was built japanese spec.   i think it was the front indicator lenses that gave that away, trying to remember now. the car was not converted immediately on arrival.   it was driven for some time LHD on dealer plates i think and a special permit.   i guess because it was the importers car there was some kind of assessment/testing deal.   after that assessment period ran out it was converted.    it may have been sold, but then was purchased back.   all the info i ever heard was verbal. there was a second car.   its rumoured to still exist.   the story was it was crashed and very badly damaged.   but someone kept the wreck.  that was the story.  probably an urban myth.

engineering report. (presumably this all went with the green car as material came from brian c's files when it was published 30 years ago).

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this is my old man and his business partner he still has 2,his 1st one and a last of series in pearl white with mahle wheels

@ jnr356 - frank and horst (?).

Hi @gulf908 and @wonkipop , Are you both members of the Porsche 914 Australia fb site? There are quite a few of us on there with cars spanning from resto projects to road and race going cars I am orgainsing a 50-year celebration of the 914 in Australia at the 2020 Phiilip Island Historics from 5-8 March 2020- would love to see your cars there if you can make it! Please let me know as I need to confirm attendees to the Organising Committee in the coming weeks... I note that the top photo in wonkipop's first post would have been taken out the front of Brian's house, I too visited Brian back in the day when I became interested in 914s. He was a great fellow and a fountain of information on our cars. I believe @Airhead now owns the ex-Hamilton car, which was Brian's former 914/6. Am sure he will chime in here. Cheers Craig

Quotes source post: 303895

yes mate

@ jnr.   i believe frank would have to qualify as the longest continuous ownership of a 914 in australia. for sure. i remember him well.   he is an original. he had the red car and he contemplated selling it to me back in the 80s.   he almost did but i'm glad he changed his mind.   i remember him showing me a picture of the white car.  he might remember me as a kid who pestered him in the 80s.   its fantastic he still owns the cars. its a long time ago i last saw frank.  i hope he is well.

yes he bought it in 77..he's still wrenching away,building engines

@ crsedge.   i don't do facebook.   i hang around the edges of the 356 register in melbourne, but they won't accept my car into their historic register - plates deal etc.   not a 356. i should have mine back on the road by phillip island and i will try to get there.    doing a total clean out of fuel and brake system at present. just spent xmas break hand making new steel fuel lines to replace the orig plastic ones.    have a very good mechanic helping me.   therapy. got them in after a week of mucking around.   had to make an extra kink in them at the upper end unlike american kits to get over the pedal axles that come with rhd conversion.    nothings easy. i know airhead if airhead is a she.   see her from time to time.   she knew brian very well.   also have met her hubby if he is airhead. they know who i am, i avoid the porsche mainstream, got enough insults directed at my car back in the day not to forgive or forget. i just hung out with 914 guys back in the day and there were not many of us.   they all got old and died.    these days i hang out with another old guy who drives a beat up speedster. @ crsedge - yes the photo is taken in front of brian's house.   1991.  my car is the other car in it.  still lhd then.    was running its illinois plates.   i used to get serial runs of unregistered vehicle permits.   it took a lot of drives all over victoria to seek conversion quotes if you know what i mean! good that you met brian.

thanks for all the info WP the MM 1975 test of the white car is interesting I have just re read it and while it does mention Crayford,it doesn't actually say it was a Crayford car its very difficult to say if a 914 was or wasn't Crayford as there were no chassis numbers or registration plates mentioned on their list of invoices having said that,there was no ashtray and the dashtop seems to be leather (?) maybe we'll never know the red 914-6 is no urban myth - a one year only metallic red which suits the car beautifully I am also in the process of writing a piece for Duck and Whale on the 3 RHD 914s here in AUS these are the green Crayford car and the 2 914-6s converted by PCA in '71 and '72 I have written the intro and the end but I need to flesh out the stories I wasn't coming to Phillip Island in March but since the start of this thread,maybe its an opportunity I can't miss Craig - I will be there at PI but not driving my 914-6 -Barry sent me a notice several days ago - I heve tried to join the 914 FB page but they don't like my face !! - Luke says try again  which I will WP -  I would like to meet you and the PCA mechanic you mentioned to get more info on the 2 PCA conversions is it also possible for someone to arrange a meeting with Alan Hamilton re the PCA 914s ? I have met him several times over the years but he may not remember me I don't get to Melbourne much these days so it will be a nice 3/4 day break for me to see the ancient rellies pm if appropriate pic is from Porsche Post UK - the Crayford ad went from Spring '72 to Spring '73 cheers Dennis ☺️

no worries dennis. what a great pic you just posted. something can be arranged re meeting the man who converted the hamilton cars through my friend with with beat up speedster. the guy who did it is still around. i can tell you, and not a matter of recollection, that the white car in MM article was a crayfords car. i was young in the 80s but i had trained myself and knew what i was looking at when i looked at it. by the way brian c knew about the white car and knew it was a crayfords car. we talked about it when he was still in the world.   bless his soul. attached another old school pic. this guy used to work on brian and my 914s.  he is in NZ now.   great guy.  loves 914s. his line to me " best porsche out of the box". hopefully we can all catch up.   i'm working hard on my car.  its still got factory paint.  its a little patina-ed.  but its orig. apart from the swap over to rhd. figgaretporsche914nurburgring.pdf Fetching info...

dennis you have got me thinking. re ash trays and leather. yes none of the crayfords cars had ahstrays in dash as per factory. and they had hand stitched dashboards with a discontinuity between the instrument binnacle and the main dash top. i remember the green car.  the ash tray was in the centre console and was crayfords english addition. like a ye-olde ashtray or something out of a humber. as you note the white car had no ash tray in original position as per factory. i am relying on thirty years of memory here. my car has the ashtray in the dashboard where it is as per factory. i smoke like a chimney. i don't remember about hamo car, but i think no ashtray, too hard?  its been awhile.  ask airhead. a lot of the conversion cars done in the 90s also had no ashtray. there was specific instructions given by me re the ashtray in mine. it had to go back in (was mint - don't light the chimney thing in it). the converters grumbled about putting the ash tray back in. they had to do work on the mould to incorporate it. i still have orig radio, glovebox pod, dash top and metal dash frame.   lower dash padding with air vents went back into the car with the conversion.    have original muffler - the factory installed original.    we used it as a pattern recently to modify a kombi muffler to fit to my car.    as an aside, i don't think many people know that a 1.8 L muffler is a late kombi muffler exactly (weird indentations and all) except that the inlet pipes are welded in upside down.   my mechanic cut into the muffler, cut the inlets out, turned them around and rewelded it all back together with the original as template.    considerably less costly than importing a dansk factory repro from the usa . a further thing about that white car, it had all the chrome trim pieces on the targa bar blacked out.it was still like that in the 80s.  in MM pictures you can see that.   strange what i can remember as well as what i forget.   the fine trim that finishes the bottom of the vinyl had been screwed back on with black phillips head screws.   looked agricultural.   they were not glaring things, but it was not like the green car. the tartan seat fabric in the green car is not original.  but it is porsche fabric i think.  i remember when brian did that.   i am pretty sure it had corduroy in it from factory. it was incredibly hard to import a car into australia in the 70s.  even difficult in the early 90s.   tax hit was huge.   i minimised it as i had already owned and driven the car in the usa for two years.   whoever the owners were who bought those two cars in back then had to be very committed.   the whole process was expensive, expensive, expensive.   you would not have trusted the conversion to any jackass.    only crayfords had the rep and product to reassure a customer that the car would not be ruined.  in the case of both cars they would definitely have been driven in the uk for a period before coming here.   likely by the owners on an extended trip or working holiday.   a good number of people took delivery of their 911s that way.   direct from the factory in germany.   drove it around europe and brought it back.   there was also some lurk to the direct factory delivery that lowered sales tax or customs duty.   the direct factory deliveries were still arranged through hamiltons  i believe.   strict controls were in place that protected the distributor here.   real old guys would remember how it all worked. so in answer to musings, the white car really could not be anything other than a crayford car.   no one else did conversions on 914s back during the time when the cars were new. the only people in melbourne doing conversions were chapel engineering.   they did strictly yank tanks.   oldsmobiles, caddys etc for that sector of the melbourne market that refused to buy mercedes benzes etc.    WW2 was still close in the past in the 60s and 70s.   jewish people for instance would absolutely not drive german cars for good reason.    thats all faded away now.    chapel were still operating in the 80s.   i once went there and asked them would they convert a 914 if i went and got one.  they told me to go away.  i think chapel had such a good reputation re its conversions it serviced the national market here.   not sure if sydney had any operations converting cars.   but chapels was not an enthusiast backyard thing, it was an upfront professional storefront for the importation and conversion of brand new us cars. i really think the next guys to tackle 914s after hamiltons were frank and horst.   and that is in the late 70s and early 80s.   thats when a few other people, like me, for instance, thought to ourselves, this can be done. of course, you don't have to do it now.   its all way easier .   long as you don't mind driving in the gutter on narrow country roads.

a further thought on how to track the crayfords cars if you are an ethusiastic enough historian, or perhaps one of the english owners has enough time and patience. i think from memory the crayfords cars were supplied solely through the london porsche distributor. malaya motors?   or a name something like that. there would not have been many 914s sold in the uk, even in lhd drive form, which i think you could drive in the uk even at that time. not positive about that, but i think you could drive a lhd car in the uk.    unlike australia,    strictly no here.   except i believe in WA. and maybe NT? anyway, maybe malaya motors still has the sales records for the cars that were sold that particular model year. both those cars were 1973 model year 2.0 L cars.    they came into australia later, but only a little later, about 12 months, thats due to a) the conversion process and b) likely what i note above regarding a period of ownership os. the cars could be tracked through a) colour and b) the options. the green car was a full appearance and performance group optioned car from the factory. the white car was without at least the appearance group option package.   it had no centre console and had no factory alloys. there may well exist more information on the cars apart from the crayfords invoices. that might lead to the chassis numbers. and the chassis numbers could be checked back to the factory records. another source of chassis numbers might be nsw registration records. but i am not sure whether that kind of information can be divulged by the registration office. the number plate is clearly visible in the MM article.    NSW   HDD-122 just because crayfords did not invoice 2 australian addresses, only one, does not mean the other car was not ordered by an australian.   whoever they were they could well have been working and living in the uk, a very common thing for australians to do back then when the world was un-global and the commonwealth was still kind of intact. ps - i distinctly remember brian had photos of that hong kong car.   it was a mess.   brian had photos of just about every 914 he ever came across.    photos of him clowning around sitting in 914s chopped in half in LA junkyards etc.    i don't know what happened to his photo collection.    maybe his daughters kept them all.    airhead would know how to contact them i think.

perhaps there is another clue in the MM article. the last para says. "The 914SC we drove looks like its a collector's piece if its put up for sale, and the owner told us that if that should happen and he was to return to England the first thing he would do would be to order a new current model." uk citizen working in australia brought the car out / or australian citizen residing in the uk ordered the car. in either case there would be no invoice to an australian address. whereas the order for the green car was done from here, your invoice records show that.  owner probably went and picked it up, while taking a short working holiday in the uk or touring around europe/uk in car. ---- the MM article specifically mentions there were only 4 914s in australia at the time.   1975. that information would have been right or very close to right. 914s were so rare and unusual that the ones that were here were known. 2 with hamiltons.   the two crayford cars in nsw? however as mentioned, there was also an apple green 1.7 running around in melbourne that came out with a german girl sometime in the 1970s.    not many people remember that car.    i saw it when i first went to melbourne to go to university.   78 or 79 i think.   maybe it was not here as early as 1975. by 1979 there is only 4 more and that figure quoted by hamiltons would probably be close to correct.  porsche circles were small.    getting any kind of 914 into the country would have been an expensive exercise still at that time - and by now they are becoming second hand has been cars.   the 924 is for sale and its rhd.    2 of the 914s hamilton refers to the in the count of 8 are probably franks and horsts since they are in melbourne - and not that far from hamiltons showroom either. after that time people turned to the usa to source 914s as a few more trickled in during the 80s.     then more came in during the 90s. ----- some one will know where the white crayford car ended up.

journalist who wrote the story in mm in 75 could still be alive and in the game. john crawford.   this might be him? www.goauto.com.au:authors:john-crawford.html.webloc Fetching info...

Hi WP thanks again for your recollections and I look forward to meeting you in March the green Crayford car has no ashtray and the later console has replaced their ashtray the hamo car has one where expected but the red car has one but a little further down I will be writing to Ian McMath in the UK for some further info on these Crayfords and will let you know - he owns one and has sent me a scan of the brochure he may also know of the MM car cheers Dennis ☺️

dennis, randomly googling "crayfords rhd 914" this popped up. sales blurb is interesting. www.carandclassic.co.uk:car:C992995.webloc Fetching info... a third one in australia.? according to what is stated this car would have been a late big bumper car given date of manufacture? if date of manufacture is factory date and not a crayfords date. this one "it is believed" was in australia from sometime after 1975 and then sold and exported to someone in singapore in 1980.   in england since 2017. no documentation to support export to aus.   no photos of interior.   "updated" to a 6 and perhaps is not orig colour. definitely not the white car - that was still here in mid to late 80s. i never saw this one.   don't think it was in melbourne.

pic attached - brian in hamo 6 after he sorted it.   mid 90s. (brian ran the register and published a newsletter - no dates on it anywhere - funny guy). finding it again sharpened memory on my comment above re japanese spec light set up.   if you look at front guard the - hamo 6 came with side marker lights. at first glance as per usa cars. however we had my usa spec 4 sitting next to the hamo car one day and brian spotted that the lenses were not the same.   colour is like usa lenses but  prismatics cast in it are  different.   think we pulled out the restorers guide and figured they were japanese spec side indicators or side lights.    made sense.   factory built a lhd drive car with a rhd side of the road light set up as per japan?  914s were sold in J left hand drive.    interesting it was not english/euro spec.   i don't think we had a requirement on visible side indicators when that car came in, that was a little later i believe in late 70s or maybe even early 80s. has airhead already worked that out re the side marker lights? the car had steel wheels and porsche hub caps when brian got hold of it.   he put the fuchs wheels on.

is that fikret ??

yes jnr. he lives in nz now i think. think he spanner-ed for the kremer brothers at one stage. leather slip on shoe and greasy overalls set up was a good look. ------ ps - digging through stuff here i found my conversion invoices etc.   plus four automotive in dandenong did it.    i dealt with neil hopwood. think he is still around restoring mgs.   he'd be getting on now.   i'm getting a close look at the work from all sides at the moment - i have the fuel tank out doing the central fuel lines.   i am going to take a close look at the accomodation of the steering shaft under the dash firewall. i know crayfords cut a big diagonal gash in the upper firewall to raise the steering wheel slightly in their cars.   and then sat the fuel tank back in right near that gash with maybe a pop riveted curved fibreglass cover at most.  its in the area under the heater blower motor box.  but then again they had a fibreglass pedal box too between your toes and the fuel tank. i am not  sure  about mine but i will take a look at the detail tomorrow.    my car had a dealer installed small steering wheel from new - it was a relatively common thing in usa cars to accomodate getting in and out.   americans were the original big people post ww2.   i think the steering wheel position worked out ok on mine and we did not get anything like as radical in terms of that particular surgery.   certainly when you look closely at a crayfords car they really cut it up - in the areas that were hidden. another detail i remain uncertain about, but have a feeling was the case, is that crayfords also might have shifted the fuse board across to the right hand side and mucked around with the wiring loom in that way.    inspection of the green car would confirm what was done with the wiring.   its another one those things i have a vague recollection of as brian and i spent a lot of time crawling over the green car when mine was being done.    i am eternally grateful to brian for that.   in my case we extended the wiring across and left the loom and fuse box in the original position on the left hand side.    i think its much of muchness whether you do or you don't.   the loom goes to the front of the car through the left hand side of the front firewall from memory but travels to the rear along the central tunnel.   your extending the loom no matter what you do. what i do remember distinctly was that after neil finished the conversion he said he was never doing another one. too hard. ps to dennis. a further little detail re the green and white cars.   brian always said his was a 73 car.   which may well have been the case with date of manufacture.   but it may have been a 74 model year.    white car too.   compliance plating etc for personal import and registration in australia revolves around date of manufacture, not model year.   there is always that confusion with northern hemisphere cars because the model years go from summer break to summer break of each year.    in case of germany i think its july or august to may of next year.   something like that.    a 74 model can be made in either second half of 73 or first half of 74.   something definitely kicked in with the australian design regulations in 1974 that put a stop on getting further cars in easily.   the two cars we have been discussing would have been last minute, last chance orders i think.  in terms of a new car purchase. the second wave of 914 importation that starts in the 80s and on was either done through the personal vehicle import provisions or another set of regulations that allowed for limited numbers commercial importation.    the second category while allowing the cars to be imported imposed heavy taxes.   my memory is 100% sales tax on purchase price and 50% customs duty. 150%.    when i did mine i escaped the sales tax but had to pay the duty.    the heavy tax regime meant a  lot of down at heel californian cars came in.   cheap to buy in usa.   generally rust free.     i did mine the other way around.  bought a good condition car.    contrary to popular views at the time very good rust free cars could be found in the north and eastern states of the usa.  cars that were only driven in summer virtually from new.    even at the time a 2.0L 4 in that state was worth a lot of coin in the usa.   usually about 10K USD.    the sixes were anything from 15K for a slightly down one and often in the 20-30K range for a good one. i remember going to see a guy way up in the north of wisconsin who had about 50 or 60 914s in a huge warehouse shed on the shore front of lake michigan.    about 5 of them were any good.   amongst the cars were about a dozen 914/6 wrecks.   none of them could be put back on the road.   they had hit solid things going very fast.    i asked him why he had them and he said he was making an investment for his retirement - they were good for the chassis numbers and engine numbers.    all still had their engines in them.   matching numbers cars.  they were spooky as all of them looked like fatals. i have often wondered how many of those cars ended up as reconstructed "authentic" sixes.   that was thirty years ago.

yes I know him well,we built some cool stuff together

@ dennis, if you go to brian long's book he has a pretty good explanation for the saga of a 914 for australia. its on page 52-53 (at least for the first edition of the book,)   i pulled it out this morning to have a read. according to long, early on porsche said the 914 would become available in rhd with the 73 model.   which is i think when they went over to two adjustable seats? porsche took over the car from 1973 model on i think - vw walked away from it and i think all the marketing production agreements were reworked as well. thats when porsche started making the base model 1.7 and 1.8 a better car and came up with the 2.0L 4. porsche must have been looking ahead to that model year to engineer up a universal model.    that might have made a right hand drive factory car possible because it would have had to have had a reworked firewall pressing and fuel tank set up.  the dual adjustable seats and other interior revisions were probably the economical to produce vestiges of a much earlier planned all markets car? when i was younger and starting out in working life i knew a lot of architects in melbourne 10 years + older than me.   and all of them loved the 914 and had wanted one when they were new.   they all had the same story, they were going to buy one when it came out rhd which they were all told was going to happen.  accords with long publication.   so if you wanted one you were probably hanging out for 1973 to arrive.    and then it didn't happen.   and then the adr crunch was coming.    so anyone who was really committed made their move in late 73.    that would have been it.    probably the real reason for those two crayfords cars coming in when they did and really none before that time and none after.   (you got to wonder if that singapore car alleged to have come to australia was ever put on the road here, adrs and authorities might have prevented road registration?) anything after that meant you could not go through the prior channels of a new car purchase import as it all tightened up in terms of adr compliance.   you could still do a private import.  but it meant you had to live overseas for a time and own the car for that time.   and you have to prove it with documentation.   that was harder to do as the time restrictions were longer than a holiday jaunt in europe. i'm sure you know the story about rhd 356s.  norman hamilton was one of the first distributors of porsches outside germany.  some time very soon after the war he followed a test car back to the workshop and hammered out a deal on the spot.   right hand drive 356s were done from the earliest cars.   it might have been a different story if norman hamilton was not so curious.   unfortunately on one followed a 914 back to the workshop and hammered out an aus export deal on the spot.   different world. there were heaps of them still on the street when i lived in chicago in the 80s.   many of them had frightening levels of rust.   last legs stuff.    but there was also still lots of tidy cars and they came out every summer.  porsche were focussed on the usa with the 914.   markets like aus were irrelevant and too difficult.

WP I have bought a MM April 1975 and hopefully will see it later this week some of the pics in the Brooklands reprints aren't as good as they could be for details here is a press release from PCA from Australian Motoring News on 10 September 1969 it states the -4s would be sold through selected VW dealerships and the -6s would be sold through Porsche dealers it also states the first shipment of RHDs would arrive later in 1970 prices were to be $4954 and $7900 this was Plan A and in hindsight it was dead in the water even as the AMN printing ink dried from that day I wanted a 914-6 - I tried to order from Scuderia Veloce at Lindfield but nothing happened fast forward to 6 years ago and I bought a -6 from Texas - the long wait was worth it I am e mailing Ian McMath in the UK today for his Crayford input - he owns one and appears to know a lot about them cheers Dennis

thanks dennis. what a great article. boy were they bs-ing in print --- having just spent the day semi finishing off the fuel lines and looking over that conversion sans fuel tank. maybe hamiltons were just trying to whip up interest and get pre orders to convince the factory to make one. what they would have discovered on getting those appraisal cars here would have been very depressing in engineering terms. you are correct, dead in the water before the ink had dried on that article. anyway, after today, for the life of me i really can't understand why crayfords slashed the fire wall so drastically to accomodate the steering shaft. they were really intent on raising that steering wheel.? my car has the merest of dents formed in the section of the firewall as it gets below windscreen.   that was all it needed to mount the steering wheel at factory ht.   crayfords should have just fitted a smaller diam steering wheel?  like can do americans. sure was a long wait for you.   but i have no doubt it was worth every minute. i can't wait to put all of the 76 vo-po hp mine has to offer back on the road. it goes around corners fast but isn't going to beat anything in a drag race.  except maybe a kombi van.

Hi Guys, great to read stuff on the Crayfords. I have owned mine for simply years. Mine is believed to be  No1 Crayford, according to David McCullam, owner/boss of Crayfords The car in the small brochure is mine. Funnily enough, I contacted a specialist Porsche company here in the UK with a view to appraise my car with a view of maybe selling in the near future---toooo many project and not enough life left to keep everything. Ian

Here is an excerpt from PCGB magazine after the 50th anniversary held at Brooklands... Longstanding club member Ian MacMath had driven more than 100 miles in his original 914/6 racer, still stripped back inside and sporting a bare fibreglass bonnet and fully welded roll cage from its days as a highly competitive hillclimber. Ian, who is now in his 70s, won the Porsche Club National Hillclimb Championship three times in this car and still drives it regularly on the road. He is also the proud owner of an ultra-rare Crayford car, brought along by one of his friends. This is one of just 11 914s converted to right-hand drive by the company, and it drew a crowd of intrigued former Porsche mechanics at Zuffenhausen when Ian recently drove it there for the Porsche Museum’s own celebrations.

Thanks for sharing Ian 👍

Just to fill in a bit more history on this interesting topic: Attached is an interior pic of mine.  Original conversion history unknown but I doubt it was by Crayford.  The conversion was not brilliant and I got PRTech to re-do it.  New pedal box structure to cater for dual master cylinders and spent a lot of time on the steering shaft position to raise it enough for my long legs etc etc.  I think I still have most of the interior that we took out.  The cage is heavily integrated into the chassis structure (ties into the A pillars, rear turrets etc which makes it very stiff. I bought it in about 1994 I think from a dealer in Newcastle.  It had a very poor 2.7 CIS engine which I replaced by a  completely new and sweet  2.7 most of which was prepped and machined by John Williamson (Otto of Otto's Venice - RIP) with whom I had a good rapport and assembled by myself and Bruce Buchanan back in the day.  How it came to be in OZ and converted I have no idea.  The dealer said he'd heard it once belonged to Jim Neighbors (Gommer Pyle?) but who knows?.  It's a MY1970 car with a VERY low VIN. Now runs a really sweet 2.0L 6 engine which took me several attempts to get right - it's much harder to build a good small engine than a big one!!! Currently awaiting the installation of a new hoist to fix it after and argument with a hillside in Tas a few years ago.  This year - definitely... Mark

@bumble any reason that you have gone through two 2.7 motors & now into a 2.0? hard competition use or ....

We (Bruce B. and I) considered the original engine not up to scratch for competition - undersized re-ground crank, CIS injection, worn out etc etc.  I re-used some of the bits (heads, cam carriers etc and 'retired' the rest - hence the 2nd 2.7.  The problem was that the Targa regs stated that the engine block must be of the original material (probably there to stop ppl putting alloy block V8s in cars that never had them) but technically it applied to me because my engine used a '68 aluminium case when it should have been magnesium.  Most scrutineers wouldn't know the difference but one year, Ken Price was scrutineering and he picked it up (Ken had a 914/6 with I believe a 2.9 based on a John Gregory stroker crank so he knew what he was on abou - the car now owned and campaigned by Ted Banks.  He also picked the same problem with Ryan Curnick's (OBRUT) car). So I 'retired' that engine after only 15000km (actually, is to be re-birthed as a 2.8 and put into my 911 backdate once the 914 is back in service later this year) and built  the best 2.0 I could around a small spigot 7R case, counter weighted 66mm crank, big valve heads, Pauter rods yada yada...  Long story getting it right.  FWIW, my opinion is that these cars work better with the smaller engines (at least, for competition) - they just seem to be better balanced - an opinion backed up by David Withers who raced one successfully back in the day and apparently "spent a shed load going backwards trying to make it work with a 3.6".

thanks for clarifying. great story..

@bumble - any photos of your car from the exterior (noting that one side or the front may not be the best view given the altercation ), acknowledging that this would be slightly off-topic to the title of the thread?

Have no photos in electronic format so had to find some hard copies, scan then convert them into something this site can handle.  Sorry for the delay... I've run it with both GT and 916 bumpers at various times.  For rallies, it runs a square setup with 16x7 911 rims.  I run 16x7 and 16x8 944 rims for track sprints.  They fill out the guards better. I am rebuilding it to be more representative of a GT with steel guard extensions, fg hood and trunk with balsa wood reinforcements, hood pins etc and I have some 15x7 and 8 Fuchs with anodised petals as per the original factory wheels.

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Great to see it again Mark. Hope you’re well.

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Great photos. Mine will be Sunflower Yellow with the same mods you will be building, only I have kept the steel bonnet lid. Am on the verge of paint!!

Sunflower Yellow 💗 Psst... Don't tell Obrut 😉

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I was going to comment along the lines “it’s not too late to change to something not terrible”, but then decided to keep myself nice...

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Factory colour and a great period colour for a 914 GT. But I may be biased 😂

Thought this might be of interest...  we have a RHD 914-4 that came over from Melbourne Australia in 2010. The car was originally Green, but was painted Aubergine Pearl in Melbourne before it reached the UK. The Car chassis is #6129 and the car still has i's original Australian tax disc on it. It's still in really good condition and the original importer, based in Northern Ireland, won a number of Porsche GB Competitions. The Car looks like it has a Crayford conversation and is very neat and tidy. We had Barry Priestman of the 'Crayford Convertible Car Club' at our recent Open Day (picture below) and he was very impressed, it was only the 2nd RHD 914-4 he had seen. We were told by the previous owner that the Car was owned by a Porsche Club member in Melbourne at one time and that he sold it through a company called Lorbek Luxury Cars in Port Melbourne. Any help filling in the ownership gaps, would be very welcome.