why did one of the world's best-known car designers choose this weird little porsche 914/6?

a lamborghini designer’s RUF-modified porsche goes on sale

Luc Donckerwolke has spent his career designing some of the most recognizable cars on the road. He worked at Lamborghini on the Murciélago and Gallardo, later led design at Bentley, and today oversees design across Hyundai Motor Group. Among the cars in his own collection, though, sits a tiny 1970 Porsche 914/6, one of the more humble shapes to emerge from Porsche in the last century.

Donckerwolke acquired the car in 2020 and sent it to RUF in Pfaffenhausen, Germany, where it underwent an extensive rebuild. The finished car is now up for sale through Bring a Trailer, bringing this very personal Porsche back into public view. To those with little interest in horsepower, its appeal is easy to understand. This 914 sits low with an exaggerated horizontality, a flat nose, squared-off tail, pop-up headlights and a removable roof tucked into its body.

images via Bring a Trailer

porsche’s mid-engine experiment

The 914 began as a joint project between Porsche and Volkswagen in the late 1960s. Porsche wanted a more accessible model below the 911, while Volkswagen needed a new sports car of its own. The answer arrived in 1969 with the engine positioned behind the seats, giving the designers a set of proportions very different from the rear-engined 911. The final production design was developed by Heinrich Klie under Ferdinand Alexander Porsche and his team.

Porsche designer Michael Mauer once described the 914, with its unusual proportions, as ‘incredibly modern.’ He pointed to its straight surfaces and the freedom its mid-engine layout gave the design team. The windshield sits far forward, the body stays flat from nose to tail, and the large targa bar cuts across the profile like a piece of structure. It reads as a slight detour from its Porsche heritage.

Luc Donckerwolke acquired the 1970 Porsche 914/6 in 2020

one car altered across half a century

This particular 914/6 already had a second chapter long before Donckerwolke found it. Delivered new in Belgium in Lemon Yellow, it was converted in 1975 by Antwerpse Automobile Company toward Porsche’s M471 GT specification. Steel flares widened the body over larger Fuchs wheels, while chassis reinforcements moved it closer to the visual language of Porsche’s competition cars.

By the time the car reached Donckerwolke, its original slim silhouette had already been stretched outward. His decision to send it to RUF added another intervention to a car that had been changing since the 1970s. RUF refinished the body in Grand Prix White and replaced the front and rear lids, bumpers, and rocker panels with lightweight fiberglass pieces. A central fuel filler now pierces the hood, while wider 15-inch Fuchs wheels fill the flared arches.

RUF rebuilt the car at its workshop in Pfaffenhausen, Germany

RUF leaves the strange shape intact

The work underneath goes much further. RUF rebuilt the original flat-six and enlarged it from 2.0 to 2.4 liters, then upgraded the brakes, oil cooling, suspension components and transmission hardware. Inside, the 1970s cabin was pared back around Recaro seats and a padded Heigo roll cage, with Alcantara surfaces and a Momo Prototipo steering wheel. The technical changes are extensive, yet the defining shape remains immediately recognizable.

That may be the most interesting part of the car. Donckerwolke made his name working on dramatic Lamborghinis and luxury Bentleys, yet this 914/6 comes from another corner of automotive design entirely. It is small, blunt and unusually plain by sports-car standards.

More than fifty years after Heinrich Klie drew the production form, those peculiar proportions still hold the whole thing together. The car is currently being offered from Germany on Bring a Trailer (here), with bidding scheduled to close September 30th, 2026.

the Grand Prix White body keeps the 914’s unusually flat silhouette easy to read

lightweight fiberglass panels replace several of the original body components

RUF enlarged the original flat-six engine to 2.4 liters

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project info:

name: Porsche 914/6
year: 1970
owner: Luc Donckerwolke
rebuild, modification: RUF Automobile | @rufsince1939
original design: Heinrich Klie under Ferdinand Alexander Porsche and team

listing: Bring a Trailer | @bringatrailer