Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

Introduction

Back in the mid-sixty's, I recalled my older brother drove home one day in his new 1965 Mustang. It was a 289 4 speed 2bbl and very stock. I was too young at the time to appreciate this car but 2 things stood out: it looked sporty compared to my dads Fairlane 500 station wagon, and it was RED (Taken at San Francisco Marina Green; Alcatraz Prison Island in the background)

My brother and his newly plated 65' Mustang.

Fast forward to 1980; my brother still has the car but he never kept in good condition; the rust had eaten away at the block ("chunks of rust" coming out of the radiator), the drivers door was dented from an accident as was the front hood; the paint was entirely oxidized. I don't recall how many miles were on it but at the time, but I needed a car to go to college in and it looked enough of a beater that I wasn't too worried about anyone stealing it, so I bought it from my brother for $500. About a year later, the thing was ready to give up the ghost as the rust clogged up the engine and overheated it constantly, so I had the block rebuilt and since it was out, I had them rebuild the transmission as well. I myself, added new leafs and shortened front springs and a 4bbl Carter 600cfm, along with a Husrt competition shifter. BFG Comp T/A's were the "new tire" of the time and I slapped them on. This was to be the extent of my hot-rodding days. In 1984, I sold the Mustang with mixed feelings, to my nephew's fraternity boys. I have not seen it since.

That is me at the Pleasanton Autocross circa 1980.

One of the things I had contemplated on doing to the Mustang was to fashion it after the GT350 . This of course led me down a breif path at looking at the Shelby AC Cobra's. They looked cool but at the time, the desire wasn't there.

The Mustang was replaced my a 1984 VW Rabbit GTI. The venerable "hot hatch". This was factory hot-rodding of the 80's as far as I was concerned. Gone was the carburator, 14 mpg on the freeway and 4 forward speeds.

1984' Rabbit GTI

In 86', I traded up for another GTI due to the better interior and body style. This one lasted for 11 years. But it's time had come and in 1997, I turned 39 - the mid-life crisis was just getting started and I was looking for a "fun" car and while I was at the magazine stand, thumbing through R&T, Motor Tend, etc., I came across Kit Car Magazine and began thumbing through it. There in the pages was a relatively "new" company called Factory Five Racing. And a "new" concept in kit building. As I read it, I was getting "curiouser and curiouser" .

I finally logged into their webiste along with a large number of others kit car sites such as ERA, Contemporary, Everett-Morrison, LoneStar, etc.. After weeks of poking around, I came to the conclusion that most kit car frames are pretty much alike using mostly square tubed rail chassis and fiberglass tub for a cockpit; there just didn't seem to be any type of "birdcage" style chassis which typifies most racing chassis.. There were a few exceptions: Herb Adams/VSE was more of a unibody chassis, and Factory Five Racing which actually looked like a genuine racing chassis. To top it off, there was this "donor" concept that hooked me in the FFR literature. It was at that point I felt Factory Five would be the car of choice and I was primed to purchase.

Well, not everything works the way you'd like; my next daughter was due in Dec.of 97' and my wife thought it would be better to get something with 2 more doors than I had desired. I ended up with a 1998 VW Passat. My dream had suddenly disappeared. However, in a twist of irony, my oldest daughter was tasked to name our new arrival. She mentioned a friend that had moved away and wanted to name her new sister after her friend. Her name was Shelby. I felt this was a good omen of things to come.

For the next 7 years, I've been occasionally looking at Cobra's of all makes and during those 7 years, I joined the FFCobra.com forum. I enjoyed looking at everyone's great rides and the weatlh of knowledge of such great craftsmen. If there is ever a problem, I'm sure it can be solved by one of these gents.All the while, the heart was still aching for the Factory Five Roadster I could call my own. To pacify my need to build/modify and for speed, I worked heartedly on my Passat. Being that it was turbocharged, it was easy to extract horsepower from it and still maintain some street manners and good milage.

Picture was taken in Sept. 2003. Note the 'baby' Porsche calipers up front.

But in the late summer of 2003, I've pretty much done evertying that I wanted to do to it. Even before the end of the summer, I was subconsiously beginning the process of saving up for what I told my wife, would be my 50th birthday present. That's in 5 years which explains why I chose this timeframe for building a kit (goal: November, 2008 )

However, I was still not convinced my wife would ever let me do this. Citing college funds and such, I just felt that in 5 years, all I'd be able to do then, was take a loan out and simply buy one. But at the beginning of October of 2003, I glanced in the want ads, a 1991 Mustang GT 5.0 5 speed for $2900. A call to the seller revealed he had to sell and was willing to take a loss. I ran a quick Car Fax against the VIN and everything checked out ok. No major collisions and had new tags on April 2003. So in my biggest question to my wife since I asked for her hand in marriage, I asked her if I could buy it. She gave me her blessings! Did I forget to mention: I LOVE MY WIFE.

On October 10th, I bought the car from the owner for $2250 cash. With $306.30 in additional fees and sales tax (ug, I fogot all about that!!!), the final amount was $2556.30 Oh well, one thing nice about this donor, 90% of the body is in good shape and I hope to get maybe $800 back from it!

Let the project begin!