By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

I love the Shelby Cobra, but have always preferred the original slabside cars to the big 427 cars that dominate the kit car market. I was very excited when I heard that Factory Five was going to do a slabside, but I guess that plan got shelved when the economy went south. But now it looks like ERA is gonna offer a slabside kit. These are quite a bit more expensive than the Factory Five kits, but the quality is superb. So I guess I’m just gonna have to save up a bit longer! Learn more about this new slabside Cobra kit at erareplicas.com.

By Katherine Helmetag

Atomicalex

Mark Smith of Factory 5 (yes, that Mark Smith) popped up on the Car Lounge asking about fitments for turbo kits on the Volkswagen VR6. Turns out, he’s plotting a mid-engined kit based on the VW MkIV (Golf, Jetta, GTI, and presumably New Beetle) platform. He didn’t start with the VR6 - he started with the TDi, VW’s turbodiesel lump. There’s a more serious build thread going on over at tdiclub.com. This has the fixin’s to be the new cool VW kit, reminiscent of days when you could slap a kit over a Type 1 (Beetle) chassis and have yourself a new car. I might just have to hold on to my Diesel MkIV for a bit longer, as I’d love to have all that torque behind me, rather than in front, especially for the sub-$20K pricetag Mark is talking about.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Factory Five is all about their ’33 Hot Rod at SEMA this year. Check out the Hot Rod Magazine car and the electric Hot Rod after the jump!

Continue reading "Factory Five at SEMA" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Factory Five is bringing an electric powered ’33 Hot Rod to SEMA. According to Factory Five, the ’33 EV is “powered by UQM technologies electric drive and A123 Systems high-power lithium-ion batteries. It produces 300+ HP and over 660ft/lbs of torque in a 2400lb car and delivers a range of 100+ miles and 0-60 acceleration in an estimated 4 seconds! ” Can’t wait to see it next week, and of course we’ll have a ton of pics of the car right here in the CarDomain Blog!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Instead of picking on Factory Five and FFCobra.com. Or do you think the GT500KR looks good in chrome?

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

The Factory Five booth was packed as always. Their new ’33 Hot Rod is a real beauty, and of course the GTM Supercar is always a big crowd pleaser. I’m still waiting on their slabside Cobra! They tell me it’s in the queue—maybe we’ll see it next year if we’re lucky. More pics after the jump!

Continue reading "Factory Five SEMA Booth" »

By John Coyle

Editor

Factory Five’s GTM looks amazing in pictures, but you don’t have any idea how sick these cars are until you see one in person. I mean, it takes a pretty bad-ass machine to make a Lamborghini Gallardo look like a coffee table, but this beast was parked next to one while waiting to get placed in the Formatco Racing Engines booth, and was doing just that. The kit costs about $20,000, and uses a C5 Corvette as the donor car, so by using a little elbow grease, a dedicated enthusiast can put one together for around 30K. Obviously, this one probably cost at least double that, but damn, I’d take a basic model of this bad boy any day of the week. More pics—including the side by side comparo with the Gallardo—after the jump.

Continue reading "Stunning Factory Five GTM" »

The guys at Factory Five are telling me that this world record holding Type 65 Coupe will be in their booth at SEMA this year. Built by Farra Snook and SoFast Racing, the Coupe has a 347 Ford small block producing a healthy 700 hp. It went 216.9 mph at Bonneville last month, which was good for a land speed record in the blown fuel modified class. We’ll get a much closer look at this car in just a few weeks, so stay tuned.

Here’s the deal. This is the video I want to link to.
 

We told you about Factory Five’s new ’33 Hot Rod back in February, and last week Factory Five released full details and a ton of pics on their website. For $20k you get the complete kit, which includes everything except the engine, tranny, rear end, wheels, tires, fuel pump, battery and paint. Don’t let the old school looks fool you–this car was built with performance in mind. Factory Five claims that "we’ve used our 12+ years of race car design/engineering to build a modern hot rod that will out-accelerate, out-handle, and out-brake established sports cars like Corvettes, Porsches, and Ferraris." The ’33 Hot Rod is set up to accept a variety of small block Ford engines, but I doubt it will be long before you see SBC or Hemi power in these things.