Porsche 912: the four-cylinder 911

The Porsche 912 is a sports car built for the 1965 through 1969 model years. An entry-level variant of the 911, it paired the 911’s chassis and body with the 1.6-litre air-cooled flat-four of the last 356s, slightly detuned, and it was sold as a 2+2 coupé and as a Targa.

Porsche 912 at a glance

History of the Porsche 912

In the early 1960s Porsche planned to drop the 356, which would have left the new six-cylinder 911 as the company’s only product. Worried that the 911’s higher price would cost sales, executives decided in 1963 to add a four-cylinder entry model on the 911 base. The project was known internally as the 902, a designation never used in public, and the project number 912 had first belonged to the 12-cylinder boxer engine developed for the 917 racing car.

Three engine routes were considered. Dan Schwartz was assigned a new horizontally opposed four using parts of the new 901 six, stronger than the 356SC pushrod engine but simpler than the four-cam Carrera 2. Claus von Rücker explored enlarging the 356 Type 616 engine to 1.8 litres with Kugelfischer fuel injection. Both were dropped on grounds of performance, cost and timing, and Porsche instead adapted the 1.6-litre Type 616 engine to the 902.

In production form the Type 912 combined the 911 chassis and bodyshell with the 1.6-litre pushrod Type 616/36 engine, derived from the 616/16 of the 1964–1965 356SC. A lower compression ratio and new Solex carburettors cost five horsepower, but maximum torque arrived at 3,500 rpm instead of 4,200, and the car had better weight distribution, handling and range than the 911. Some equipment standard on the 911 was removed to bring the price close to the 356, and production began on 5 April 1965.

The 912 sold strongly: more than 32,000 were built from April 1965 to July 1969, and in the first years it comfortably outsold the 911, which helped Porsche while the six-cylinder car established itself. The Targa arrived in December 1966 as a 1967 model with a removable roof and a plastic rear window that opened with a zipper, later called Version I or the soft-window Targa; from January 1968 a Version II with fixed glass was also offered. The 912 was also built for the German and Dutch police, and the 100,000th Porsche, delivered on 21 December 1966, was a 912 Targa for the Baden-Württemberg police.

After the 1969 model year the 912 was dropped. Its production space went to the six-cylinder 914/6, the 911 range had returned to a three-model ladder headed by the 911S, and tighter American emission rules made another update of the pushrod engine unattractive. In 1976 the name came back for one year in the United States only: the 912E used the 914-derived 2.0-litre Volkswagen Type 4 flat-four with Bosch L-Jetronic injection and 90 SAE hp, and 2,092 coupés were built from May 1975 to July 1976, when the 924 replaced it.

Design and features

• 911 body, four-cylinder engine: the same shell and chassis with the proven Type 616 pushrod unit.
• Better balance: the lighter engine gave weight distribution and handling advantages over the 911.
• Economy: low drag, low weight and the efficient boxer gave up to 30 mpg in US measure.
• Two bodies: coupé and the patented Targa with removable roof.

Porsche 912 versions

• 912 coupé (1965–1969): the standard 2+2.
• 912 Targa (1966–1969): soft-window Version I, then the fixed-glass Version II from 1968.
• Police cars: special versions for the German and Dutch forces.
• 912E (1976): US-only revival with the 2.0-litre Volkswagen Type 4 engine.

The 912 was the four-cylinder brother of the Porsche 911, and it took over from the Porsche 356C. More cars are in the Porsche collection.

Sources

• Porsche 912, English Wikipedia: development, engines, production, 912E