Would You Drive A Vintage Porsche 911 with a V8 for $30,000?

I offer this fair warning to Porsche purists - turn away now. That holds especially true if your feelings are strongest for vintage 911s from the 1970s, back when such animals were driven by men with gobs of chest hair and plums large enough to completely lift off the throttle before entering turns. 911s of this era are quite collectible and valued by enthusiasts around the world, so for some, seeing one sporting a Chevy V8 in place of the air-cooled boxer could lead to involuntary fits of rage.

For the rest of us (yes, that means I’m not entirely a Porsche purist) I present this interesting and surprisingly inexpensive bonding of German athleticism with thick American guts. It’s a 1974 Porsche 911 slant nose selling near Phoenix, Arizona for $29,800, and before you ask, no it’s not a recipient of the infamous LS swap.

The auction simply lists this engine as a 5.7-litre Chevy V8, which could cover a smorgasbord of bow tie engines from 1967 through 2002. Since it’s capped with a carb and lacking the prolific wiring harnesses common with computerised engines, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s old school.

The other big elephant in the room here is the whole slant nose wide body thing. Personally I’ve always loved the slant nose look, but this didn’t become a factory option until the 1980s. V8 in the back, wide body kit with a slant nose in front - we’re dealing with a seriously customised Porsche here.

Frankly I love the whole mashup, but it does leave me wondering just what flavour of 911 this car was when it first hit the road in 1974. Standard 911? 911S? It does say Carrera on the side, but it’s also wearing a V8 badge so take all that with a grain of salt. Here’s hoping it wasn’t originally a 1974 911 Carrera RS, which did come with a larger spoiler and wider rear haunches. That would make an easier starting point for such a conversion, but oh, the humanity. And that’s coming from someone who’s not opposed to eight cylinders shoved into the boot of a 911.

Sadly, the auction doesn’t answer any of these questions. It’s depressingly short, touching on the main points in a very general fashion. Chevy V8, Porsche five-speed manual (which I’m sure will hold up under the V8’s torque), cold air conditioning, and hey, it does not run hot, which I guess is sometimes a problem when you stick a big V8 in a tiny space with limited airflow. The current owner (whom we’ll call Mike because the auction listing says to call Mike) also promises “unbelievable bragging rights.” We’ll see about that.

Still, the few photos of the car look fabulous, and I tend to believe Mike when he says the selling price is less than half the cost of just the conversion. I have no idea how a hefty V8 affects the already twitchy handling of this generation 911, but you can’t argue the uniqueness and the novelty of having such a creation in your garage. I’d say it’s worth a test drive at least - someone buy me a plane ticket to Phoenix and I’ll do a full CT road test. I might immediately die from horrific lift-throttle oversteer, but whatever the result, I promise to make it entertaining!