There comes a time in every kit builder's life when they'll need to know where the engine and transmission will be located in their ride. That time has come for the California Hauler, and since we opted to run a V-8 in place of the stock Chevy S-10 engine with our Auto Classic Willys truck project, it changed the location of everything in the engine compartment.

Consider for a moment the broad application of the term steering. It is said that a driver steers his car, a CEO steers his company, a captain steers his ship, and a coach steers his team. The repeated use of the term "his" reveals a striking connection between steering and ownership. Passion applied to steering in any context is most powerfully rooted in a strong sense of ownership. In that sense, steering a high-performance car in the right direction with immediate response might be the purest and most exhilarating expression of ownership. "I own this car, therefore it is mine to steer, shift, stab, and stop."

If you've been following the California Hauler's assembly in the past few issues of KIT CAR, then you know we recently received the most important parts of the project: the bed and cab. Also, you'll notice a new company listed as a source for the Willys truck kit: Auto Classics.

Work is getting done on KIT CAR's Ecocat project car (the Shell Valley Cheetah powered by an Ecotec engine), and we thought we'd highlight one of the more simple modifications we did while finishing up the Wilwood disc brake setup-something every kit or replicar builder should know.

Building a car from a kit is sometimes akin to traveling down a dark and lonely path. With that in mind, I know I'm only beginning my journey with the Willys truck project, but I'm optimistic at this point.

For a moment, put yourself back in time to the early '60s. In the world of road racing, Bill Thomas, in his once-competitive Corvette, was being humiliated on the track by a little British-bodied, Blue Oval-powered roadster--the Cobra had arrived. Thomas joined with Don Edmunds to create the Chevrolet-powered Cheetah to do battle against those nasty Ford-powered Shelby Cobras. The Cobras spitting venom on the competitive edge Vettes once enjoyed was not taken lightly by the Bow Tie boys, Thomas and Edmunds. Unfortunately, the Cheetah would fall short in its attempt to unseat the dominant Cobra. According to the best sources, only 11 Cheetahs were built prior to the fire that destroyed Bill Thomas' shop in 1965. However, the mystique surrounding the Cheetah fueled the creation of numerous full-size replicas, as well as the thousands of miniature slot cars enjoyed in the homes of many small children. At the time, ignorant that the Cheetah was modeled after a "real car," most believed the slot cars to be some toymaker's poor interpretation of a Corvette coupe!

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men. The phrase has been reinterpreted many times since first written by 18th-century poet Robert Burns (who, oddly enough, was the first to commit the words to the New Year's standard "Auld Lang Syne" to paper), but what it comes down to is: Things don't go the way they're planned. But that was not the feeling I had when I first laid eyes on Active Power's Willys pickup kit at the Carlisle Kit & Import Nationals last year. What I thought was, "I like this design. Part street rod, part kit car, and something that was new on the market." It had been a few years since I had immersed myself in a car project to the level of which this one will become. The last one, the California Spyder project built while I was on staff at Street Rodder magazine in the '90s, took twice as many years to finish as I thought it would and buried me financially, too. The car, an all-steel, original '29 Ford highboy roadster, turned out great, but I learned the very hard way how a high-end street rod was supposed to be built.

I'm reminded every so often just how different people are by what they think of when they hear certain words or phrases. Most folks over 65 think of only one thing when someone says "Pearl Harbor." Those over 40 know the javascript:preview_story_session()importance the name Watergate has when talking about the United States' political history. On the other hand, kids under 30 probably don't know that Paul McCartney was once in a band before he formed Wings (and most kids under 20 probably haven't even heard of Paul McCartney).

The concept of the ECOCAT project started over a year ago, when some bench-racing magazine types were left with a 2.2L Ecotec engine without a home. From those "what-if" sessions, this KIT CAR project has evolved into a rolling test bed of unique body design elements combined with serious performance suspension and braking components. It is also a first-ever conversion of an Ecotec engine to a rear wheel drive application. Yet, through it all, we've always known we wanted to add a turbocharger to the powerplant.

When we ordered wheels from Team III Wheels, we didn't pay that close of attention (must have been that crooked tape measure I got from that 99-cent store) to the bolt pattern. We got what we ordered, which was for a Chevy pattern (4.75 inches), but we needed the 4.5-inch Ford pattern. There's nothing like ordering up a great looking set of wheels, in our case a slick set of 18 x 8 and 18 x 9 ET Classic Five wheels, only to box them right back up and send 'em back for the right bolt pattern. Luckily, we are not doing rocket surgery here!

As we forge ahead with KIT CAR's ECOCAT project, the most unique planned feature is the use of a 2.2L Ford Ecotec engine for "motorvation." While the body modifications that were made were extreme, the conversion of a front-wheel-drive powerplant to a rear-drive application is the defining element of ECOCAT.

The ECOCAT is the project car KIT CAR debuted with in its September '04 issue--a multi-part how-to illustrating how the car, a 'glass Cheetah kit sold exclusively through Shell Valley Companies, is transformed into a one-off, slinky street cat. Born from the sketchpad of automotive illustrator Thom Taylor, the ECOCAT gets its name from the marriage of the Cheetah body and a Ford Ecotec 2.2L engine.

There's passion surrounding the Cheetah. Often passed over like a sidelined star quarterback, the Cheetah is an incredibly ignored candidate for high-performance driving. Built in the early '60s by engineer Bill Thomas and Indy Car builder Don Edmunds to compete with the seemingly unbeatable Shelby Cobras, the lightweight car, sporting a Corvette drivetrain, was hoped to give the Bow Tie boys something to cheer about.

The ECOCAT is a project car that is unlike any previous vehicle featured in KIT CAR. It is the culmination of ideas and bench racing session between certain magazine editors, their respective magazines, a very talented designer, and a group of manufacturers that see its uniqueness for the market place. Before we expound on the car itself, readers of KIT CAR may remember Eric Geisert's editorial (see "In the Lupe," July 2004) where he laid out his plan for the future of KIT CAR, which included "follow along buildup" articles of popular replicar manufacturers. The ECOCAT project is the first of those vehicles.

As with any project, you occasionally run into some stumbling blocks that really give you cause to stop and wonder. From simple questions, such as "Which intake runner did that screw fall into?" to the perplexing and all-out "How my supposeta do that?" As KIT CAR's Ecocat project moves forward, one of the single biggest questions that needed to be answered was how the 2.2L GM Ecotec engine (normally a transverse-mounted, front-wheel-drive application) could mate in-line with a Tremec five-speed transmission, and in the process, be used as rear-wheel-drive?

The ECOCAT is a project car that is unlike any previous vehicle featured in KIT CAR. It is the culmination of ideas and bench racing session between certain magazine editors, their respective magazines, a very talented designer, and a group of manufacturers that see its uniqueness for the market place. Before we expound on the car itself, readers of KIT CAR may remember Eric Geisert's editorial (see "In the Lupe," July 2004) where he laid out his plan for the future of KIT CAR, which included "follow along buildup" articles of popular replicar manufacturers. The ECOCAT project is the first of those vehicles.

Last year, Popular Hot Rodding magazine (a sister publication to KIT CAR) launched a new competition designed to showcase the absolute edge of street engine performance. Called the Engine Masters Challenge, the program was based on hard parameters (like displacement and permissible parts) with plenty of room for talented engine builders to show their skills while they focused on small-block domestic V-8s of no more than 366 ci of displacement.

If you've been reading Kit Car for the past few months and following our buildup of the Factory Five Racing Cobra replica, this final installment should bring everything home for you. The kit's completely finished and on the road, and the final questions are doubtlessly "What did it cost to build it" and "How does it perform?" In this story we'll answer both those questions and provide plenty of other interesting information about the car.

Heading toward the goal of a completed Factory Five Cobra replica, we present the second buildup installment, covering the rest of the procedures necessary to finish the chassis.

If you are thinking about building a Cobra replica on a tight budget, then you'll be interested in this machine and the piece-by-piece method its builder employed to get it built. Unlike many kit builders, Jackie Nittler bought this roadster one piece at a time. He knew he wanted the car, but finding the cash to lay down all in one chunk was beyond his grasp. So Jackie chose another route by buying the pieces he needed one at a time.

This is how the Factory Five Racing kit is shipped to your door. There is a $350 crating charge, and shipping charges depend on how far from the factory the crate has to travel. Shipping will never exceed $1,200.

We last left our Factory Five Racing (FFR) Cobra replica buildup with a driveable chassis and ready to receive the body, interior, and trim. In this installment we'll cover mounting the body to the finished chassis, adding the soft goods to the interior, and attaching the windshield, lights, gas cap, hood, doors, and rollbar. In short, we'll finish the car just in time to head for its first car show.