All Porsche®
914 and Porsche 914/6 vehicles have the same Hella tail light assemblies
with a single housing on each side encompassing the turn, tail/brake and
reverse lights. The cars came with one of three lens styles, US, European/German
or French specification. These designations are fairly self-explanatory,
but it has been pointed out that the tail light lenses referred to as
"European Specification" by U.S. Porsche 914 owners are referred
to as "German Specification" by French 914 owners (think about
it).
Normal
problems experienced with these assemblies lens “spider web”
cracking in the curved turn signal section, lens mount screw rusting
resulting in splitting of the plastic screw mount, and housing seal
failure/leakage resulting in serious rust damage in the back of the rear
trunk. Additionally, early model year Porsche 914 car tail light housings
frequently experienced melting/cracking from tail/brake light bulb
heat. This flaw was remedied in
the later models through a slight redesign of the housing reflector to
include slots for slide-in metal heat shields. Still, the Porsche 914 tail lights were
never a crowning design achievement.
Current
eBay listings for Porsche 914 and 914/6 tail lights:
The Porsche 914 Euro
(German) specification tail light
lens has an amber turn signal section, a red running/brake light section
and a clear reverse light panel. From the factory, these lenses were
paired with European (or Italian) spec front turn signal lenses which have separate
orange signal lamp and clear running light panels (or are completely clear
in the case of Italian spec).
As
noted on the TURN SIGNALS page, these front Euro
or Italian spec turn lenses require
the corresponding sectioned housing to enable separate illumination of the
lens panels. Also, Porsche 914 vehicles delivered to many European nations
did not have side marker lights (cars delivered to Scandinavian countries
and Italy had side markers... though the markers on Italian models were
clear and wired as turn signals). Basically, keep it in mind that while switching your US
spec tail light lenses to the Euro specification looks good and functions
properly, the Concours crowd will frown.
The Porsche 914
French specification tail light
lens has an amber turn signal section, a red running/brake light section
and an amber reverse light panel. From the factory, these lenses were
paired with European spec front turn signal lenses which have separate
orange signal lamp and clear running light panels. Cars delivered with
French specification tail light lenses had no side marker lights.
The Porsche 914 US specification tail light
lenses were uniformly red across the turn and running/brake light sections with
the standard clear reverse light panel. From the factory, these
lenses were paired with US spec front turn signal lenses which are
a uniform amber color and use non-partitioned housings. The US spec tail
light housing pictured is missing the corner diffuser (it is in place in
the Euro light housing).
