I think you just need to have driven a car from that era to understand this post and believe it -- the car doesn't neccessarily need to be that old. I had a '77 Civic in 1982 and it had many of these same "features" as his Porsche - any key (or screwdriver) could open the door or turn the ignition, it had a manual choke lever installed because the automatic choke didn't work, there was an art to pumping the gas pedal before starting in cold weather (there was a fine line between being able to start and flooding it), there was no clutch interlock (or it was broken) to prevent starting the car in gear, and a bunch of other quirks similar to his.

And it was only 5 years old.

edit: And the oil use! I'd forgotten about that until reading his post, I used to carry a few jugs of oil in the trunk since the car was using almost a quart per fillup, and many gas stations kept a display case of oil out by the pumps so you could easily buy a quart if you needed it. My current 7 year old car doesn't use any noticeable amount of oil between ~8000 mile oil changes.

Not to say one can't be hoodwinked from time to time, naturally, but for me it's not the "facts" that ring true. It's the joy and humor and love that is hard to fake.

The article is presented as a letter to a car thief, a preposterous proposition right up front. It is not presented as a repair guide or an "evaluate whether a 914 is worth buying" guide, so it's really only of interest for entertainment and nostalgia purposes.

There's literally zero chance I'll ever be in a conversation with someone and say aloud "Oh, Porsche owners call this Neverland," and have to worry about someone interrupting me with, "BS, I belong to a Porsche club and have never heard this nickname."

By trusting someone who has. Either trust a specific person or believe there is someone in the crowd who would say something.