Luc Donckerwolke’s 1970 Porsche 914-6 sold last week on Bring a Trailer for 225,000 euros, roughly $253,000. For a car that Porsche purists spent decades dismissing as a Volkswagen in drag, that number lands like a slap.
Donckerwolke is not some celebrity dilettante collecting trophies for his garage. He penned the Lamborghini Gallardo, shaped the entire Genesis design language, and launched the Magma performance sub-brand. The man knows cars at a molecular level, and he chose a 914.
That choice tells you more about the 914’s legitimacy than any auction result ever could.
The car itself is no barn-find survivor. Delivered new in Belgium, it was modified in 1975 by local dealer Antwerpse Automobile Company with steel fender flares mimicking the 914-6 GT race car. Donckerwolke bought it in 2020 and sent it to Ruf, which rebuilt it with the kind of surgical precision only Ruf brings to a Porsche.
Ruf punched the flat-six out to 2.4 liters, added a twin-plug ignition system and velocity stacks feeding dual Weber triple-barrel carburetors. New stainless steel exhaust, upgraded oil cooling, modern brakes, a fresh clutch and lightweight flywheel mated to the five-speed manual transaxle. The body got a fiberglass hood, engine cover, bumpers, rockers, a central fuel filler, and a repaint from factory Lemon Yellow to Grand Prix White.
The 914’s original sin was always the Volkswagen connection. Most left the factory with flat-four engines displacing between 1.7 and 2.0 liters, sourced from VW. The car was supposed to be a Volkswagen successor to the Karmann Ghia, engineered by Porsche but sold under the VW badge.
When Volkswagen pulled out of the deal, Porsche was stuck selling it under its own name. Brand loyalists never forgave the car for its parentage.
The 914-6, with Porsche’s own 2.0-liter flat-six making 108 horsepower, was always the more serious machine. Only about 3,300 were built between 1969 and 1972. A 914-6 GT finished sixth overall at the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is not the résumé of a poseur.
Only a handful of 914s have ever crossed $150,000 on Bring a Trailer. Donckerwolke’s car blew past that threshold by more than $100,000. Some of that premium reflects the Ruf build, some the provenance of ownership by one of the industry’s most respected designers, but the broader trend is unmistakable.
The 914 is being re-evaluated. It was a mid-engined, lightweight sports car decades before Porsche returned to the formula with the Boxster and Cayman. The layout was right, the proportions were right, and the badge snobbery was wrong.
The restomod world has been strip-mining 911s for years, pushing air-cooled prices into absurd territory and spawning an entire cottage industry of reimagined versions. The 914 offers something different: a genuine Porsche platform with real competition history, still attainable enough that builders with taste and skill can create something personal.
Whether $253,000 becomes the floor or the ceiling for cars like this depends on what follows. Ruf-built, designer-owned 914-6s don’t come along often. But the appetite for them clearly exists, and it is growing faster than anyone in Stuttgart’s old guard would have predicted.
Share this Story