1933 Ford Factory Five Racing Coupe - A Cobra in Henry's Clothes

Though some in this industry may view this comprehensive package-type design limiting, it's a philosophy that overwhelmingly redeems itself by making the car operate as a balanced system rather than a piecemeal conglomeration of sub-assemblies that may or may not work well with each other. Furthermore, it practically eliminates the frustration and guesswork generally associated with building a car from scratch.

For example, as part of that one-box philosophy, the chassis includes engine and transmission mounts, an aluminum radiator, and even a driveshaft and U-joints for select drivetrains. The roll bars aren't just part of the package; they're part of the car's chassis.

Furthermore, the box includes every piece of suspension, including the spindles, coilovers, rear suspension links, and oversized front disc brakes. The electrical panel and plug-and-play harness runs everything right down to the supplied DOT-approved headlights, LED-lit taillights, and Auto Meter gauges.

As you'd expect, the body has a fully functioning hood, doors, and deck lid and includes comprehensive weatherstripping. More than just interior and trunk panels, the car comes with an entire interior package, including carpet, bucket seats, and Simpson harnesses. The E-brake handle? It's in there. Steering wheel and column? It has a Factory Five-specific 14-inch wheel on an ididit column purpose built for this car. You want fasteners? The kit includes more than 550 of 'em, including specialty and high-strength variants.

"Really, all the parts are there," Dave said, the pitch of his voice rising in direct proportion to his enthusiasm. "You're getting everything except the engine, transmission, wheels, tires, fuel pump, and battery. Oh, and you gotta paint it."

"One of the things that's made Factory Five famous is that our cars go together pretty well, and this one's the easiest to build of all of 'em," he said. "People are going to be able to build it a little quicker" (than the average hot rod/street rod).

How fast? "Everybody asks the same questions," Dave noted. "How much does it cost and how long does it take to build?"

According to Dave, by chasing great deals, "A guy could build one of these things for less than thirty grand pretty easily," Dave revealed. "You have to be careful; paint can knock you out. But you can do it." As far as how long it takes to build one, "We're about 250 hours for our cars. That's based on a good survey of the people who build their own Cobras, and this is the most elemental car we've ever built.

"Realistically I'd say it's six-month project, after-hours-not full time," Dave noted. "I'd like to under-promise and over-deliver, and I'd say 90-percent of our customers tell us that it took less time than they thought. You know you've really done it right when a customer is even happier about how the car drives and that it took less time than he thought."

"The challenge was-and I think Jim (Schenck) met it-is how can you make it customizable if all the parts are in a box?" Dave observed. "There's a lot of latitude (in the car) because of the way in which it was designed."

For example, "With the slide-in chrome windshield in it's a roadster; replace it with the hardtop and it's a coupe. The doors come with the power window mounting points already in them, so if you order the car as a roadster and buy the top later you're okay. And the optional fenders...they're removable, too. So really, you've got four cars in one platform.

"Now you mix in paint, wheels, and tires, which are all up to the customer, and engine and drivetrain options, and you can really personalize these cars. The interior-we're just giving everybody a black interior. It's like a Henry Ford thing-any color as long as it's black, right? But you can also do your own if you want. You're not locked in.

"It's not like a donor-based car that has to be built one specific way. There are a few things that have to be a certain way to make the car work as well as it does, but beyond that you can change a lot. That was a third priority.

Finally, play hard More than a car, the Factory Five '33 is a system. By the premise of under-promising and over-delivering, Dave said he isn't willing to put a pinpoint performance numbers on the car's capabilities at this point (among other things, he notes that simple tire selection introduces a dizzying array of variables for which the company cannot anticipate). However, he isn't shy about comparing the '33 Hot Rod test car-a car built to very basic standards-to the other cars in the company lineup.

Let's just say its performance boils down to this: "The '33...is going to spank the (Factory Five Racing) Cobra. That was the charter," Dave insisted. "Here are some metrics: (R&D head) Jim (Schenck) took the hot rod up to an SVT club autocross and ran it against his own spec racer."

Now, Jim is more than just head of R&D. "He's a very accomplished driver," Dave said. "He wins Autocrosses and road races with his own spec racer," he continued. Among his accolades: he finished within the top three positions at the Charlie Gibson 300, one of the events in the Factory Five Racing Challenge Series.

The results? When compared to the spec car, "He ran two seconds faster in the Hot Rod in a real high-speed autocross that's more like a road course," Dave said. "The '33...this is our mule, our prototype with a 200,000 mile junkyard 280-horsepower DOHC 4.6 engine. So it's not making a lot of horsepower. It had racing tires on it, but so did his spec racer."

"Keep in mind that I'm comparing (the '33) to our race car Cobra; the street car Cobras are a tick slower than that." And I think we've adequately made the case that those cars' performance is more than respectable.

"One advantage-actually one of the biggest advantages-is that even though the frame is stiffer, the car is 250 to 300 pounds lighter than the Cobra. On scales, full of gas and everything it was 2,120 pounds."

But what's a company that builds replica Cobras doing in the hot rod market? "I don't differentiate," Dave admitted. "We've been making chassis, bodies, aluminum panels, and suspensions for 12 years, and we've built 7,000 cars. So why is it a departure for us to build a hot rod? It's a tube frame and fiberglass body-plenty of others like it are out there-so why is it such a departure?

"The bottom line to me is, it ain't a hot rod if it doesn't perform," Dave went on. "And when I say perform, when you pull the trigger it ought to mash your face; when you stand on the brakes it ought to stop like it's on Velcro; when you turn into a corner, it ought to turn in like a race car; and when you trail-brake in a turn it ought to tell you what it's doing. And if you end up in the weeds and you don't know what happened, it's not a racecar.

"And if you look at it," he continued, "from the very beginning, a hot rod has been nothing more than a race car that gets driven on the street."

On The Shoulders Of Giants Why the '33 Hot Rod has more tradition than the garden-variety "traditional" car.

Dave and Mark Smith weren't the first guys to get bored going fast in a straight line. In fact, the first quarter-mile tracks weren't straight at all; they were round or oval. Though midgets and "Big Cars" (sprint cars for the time) prevailed, there were legions of racecars fashioned from old Ford bodies. An important distinction about these cars is that they weren't necessarily Ford-powered...or sat on a Ford frame.

Just as lakes racers tired of going fast in a straight line, a select few got bored turning left. It's from this group that a special breed of racecar emerged: the sports rod. And with it evolved a special breed of racer.

But it wouldn't have happened if a more European form of motorsports hadn't established itself in the States in the early 1950s: road racing. Dominating this series were lightweight European cars with advanced independent suspension systems and highly tuned engines. They were fast.

So too were they expensive-at least to anyone with a family to feed.

But just because they couldn't afford the machines didn't mean an inspired hot rodder couldn't compete with them. Guys like Max Balchowsky did what lakes racers had been doing for years: by using the resources available to them, they created seemingly improbable combinations of production car parts. Then they too went fast. Real fast.

The stories are legendary. Among them, Ak Miller cobbled together a ragtag batch of parts like an Olds engine, a '50 Ford chassis, and a Model T body, and created El Caballo de Hierro, or the Iron Horse. With it he ran four of the famed La Carrera Panamericana races in Mexico. About that time, Doane Spencer reconfigured his famed lakes roadster to go racing south of the border, only to have the series fold before he finished.

Soon after, three guys, Duffy Livingstone-father of the Go-Kart, among other things- Roy Desbrow, and Paul Barker slapped together a hot rod and joined the ranks. With a Flathead, the Eliminator was an also-ran; however, when reborn with a 265 Chevy and dubbed Tihsepa Mark II (read the first word backwards for a chuckle), it gave the sporty-car Teabaggers hell. Oh, yeah, that's the car in the photo, in case you're wondering.

Of all the contributions, Balchowsky's was probably the most significant-at least for our purposes. After finding modest success with a Deuce roadster powered first by a flathead Caddy and eventually a Buick Nailhead (his signature henceforth), he scratch-built a series of cars. Like dogs, they weren't necessarily handsome, but they were all painted yellow-hence the Ol' Yeller name they all bore. And for the record, the car humbled many a European thoroughbred on the track.

So what's a road racer built with a production-car drivetrain and clad in a hand-made body have to do with Factory Five's '33 Hot Rod? Well, as their similar construction indicates, everything. But it goes deeper; without Balchowsky's cars, Factory Five wouldn't exist.

That's a bold statement, but it holds water. It's because one of Ol' Yeller's pilots was none other than Carroll Shelby. And if you need us to explain what he did, we still don't think you'd understand.