For some enthusiasts, the ultimate barn-find is a Cobra (for me it was a 289); for others, it could be a Z28 Camaro or a Duesenberg. For John Forbes, of Denver, North Carolina, it has always been a Porsche 914/6.
Forbes is a well-known Porsche mechanic, restorer, and racer. He has worked exclusively on Porsches for 42 years, the duration of his entire working life. As a teenager, he cut his teeth on a 911 at a gas station in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. In 1971, he became a mechanic at a Porsche dealership, specializing in engines and transmissions. His first exposure to racing came when he worked on Mark Donohue’s Penske IROC Porsche at the dealership in 1974.
This is what a 1970 Porsche 914/6 with 5,000 miles on it looks like after it’s been stored for 36 years. Owner John Forbes believes it is the lowest mileage six-cylinder 914 in the world. JOHN FORBES
The racing bug had bit, and Forbes was hooked.
He raced a series of six-cylinder 914 Porsches, occasionally beating factory pros such as Hurley Haywood and Bob Snodgrass from Brumos Porsche in Jacksonville, Florida. Eventually Forbes opened his own Porsche repair facility—Black Forest Racing—and moved it to Denver, North Carolina, where he works on all Porsches, but prefers 914s.
For this Porsche barn-find story, though, we also need to mention a second Porsche mechanic named Wolfgang Schmidt. Schmidt worked in a Porsche dealership in southern New Jersey, and ordered a brand new, 1970 Irish Green 914/6 with black interior, appearance group, and steel wheels. He used the car sparingly on weekends for three years when, tragically, he was stricken with muscular dystrophy in his mid-30s. In 1976, he passed away.
His grieving widow parked the low-mileage Porsche in the garage next to a VW Beetle, where it sat untouched from 1976 to 2012. It was about that time that Forbes received a phone call from a friend, Karl, who operated a VW repair shop in New Jersey.
“Karl told me one of his customers was 75 years old and was selling her house,” Forbes says. “He told me she had an old 914 Porsche in the garage that she needed to sell. He asked if I was interested.”
It wasn’t even a choice. Forbes hooked up his trailer and made the 500-mile trip to inspect the car as soon as he could. What he discovered was an Irish Green “mouse hotel.” Mice, and probably chipmunks, had taken residence in the car during its 36-year slumber.
This is the same 914 after removing lots of acorns and the mouse hotel, installing new rings, and doing a good compound and polish. JOHN FORBES
“The gas in the tank had turned to mud and the interior smelled really bad,” he says. “But the odometer showed a correct reading of only 5,020 miles.”
He and friend Robert Fleischer bought the car, and finally Forbes realized his barn-find dream. “Acorns were everywhere—in the glove box, in the heater channels, and under the gas tank,” he says. “But the original tires held air, and the carpets cleaned up nicely. Thankfully we were able to get the smell out.”
Forbes removed the engine (which was stuck), cleaned it, and installed new rings. The dual Weber carbs only needed cleaning. The car was polished and displayed at several Concours d’Elegance events, winning the most original, lowest-mileage car at one.
Porsche connoisseur Bob Ingram, chairman of the Pinehurst Concours in North Carolina, paid Forbes the highest compliment.
“He told me this could be the lowest mileage 914/6 in the world,” Forbes says.
Maybe the one most appreciated by rodents, too.
