Porsche Possibly Reviving 914 As New Entry-Level Sports Car

There’s one thing we’re really missing from the current car market at the moment, and that’s a back-to-basics sports car with little or no electronics, with its mantra revolving around driving pleasure and excitement. Of course, we have cars like the Mazda Miata and Toyota GT86, but these have their flaws (as everyone likes to point out) and are both front-engined. Let’s face it, no one does it as well as Porsche, so they may have to take up this challenge, and it’s a possibility that they might.

A basic Cayman will set you back around £45,000, but the German marque is interested in building a car that comes in below this by reviving the 914 name. Porsche design boss Michael Mauer has admitted that it’s a “very interesting” idea, and this basic mid-engined sports car has been a popular topic behind the company’s closed doors lately. It would be basic “with almost no electrics, everything mechanical, puristic”.

“Another option would be to take the competition to the Audi TT RS with a modern-day 550 “in the broadest sense”. Unfortunately, he doubts the market is ready for such a car.

Us car enthusiasts are constantly talking about the perfect car being a manual, communicative, and responsive machine with little electronic interruptions. Porsche, if they decide to go further with this idea, would be the perfect vessel for such a car. We can only cross our fingers and hope that they don’t give in to the rising market pull of automatic EVs with autonomous driving.

“The more I work with the 914 – that’s exactly what I’m fighting for now,” says Mauer. “This reduced, puristic approach. Integrating things, not one line too many.”

Could this be the MR2 replacement we’ve all been waiting for? Quite possibly. We can only hope that it’s cheap enough to get our hands on. With a Porsche badge stamped to its front and rear, I highly doubt it.