I've been drooling over this website for a couple days now. www.factoryfive.com . They manufacture kit cars. I saw an ad for a spec racing class where they're running Cobra replicas in a Grass Roots Motorsports magazine I was reading. Of course being me, I have to get more info on everything. Through clicking on just about every available link I came across a video of one on an autocross track. Check out how this baby corners. Gotta love weighing 2,000 pounds and having a V8 under the hood.

Link to video described: http://www.duke.edu/~ariehs/cobravids/james1.asf

linkt to website: http://www.thecobrashop.com/__Links_...nks_video.html

Enjoy. Dammn! Now I've gotta find $15,000 somewhere.

 

Well that SS of yours has to be worth something right?

The Factory Five cars are pretty cool. Too bad you're stuck with a craptastic Mustang suspension (although gathering from that video it doesn't hurt much).

Myself I'm sorta partial to the Lotus Super Seven replicas. Not very V8 friendly but even lighter.

 

Wellll????? Where's the link bud?

 

And I thought I was lazy

http://www.caterham.co.uk/

Thats the official page for the current manufactuer. The car was originally a Lotus designed in the 50's by the late Colin Chapman. Later Lotus was more intrested in Formula One racing than producing street cars so the rights to produce them were sold to Caterham in 1973.

Westfield has also been making Seven look alikes for a while.

http://www.westfield-sportscars.co.uk/

The "official" Seven from Caterham can be a little expensive but there are cheaper alternatives. I remember seeing one in GRM which used a 4.3L GM truck as a donor platform.

 

hehe go for it!

Oddly enough I talked to a guy at a MSCC event for nearly 20-30 minutes with some sort of kit car, but I didn't pay attention to anything but motor specs, he had a GM 3.4L v6, same motor as mine we were talking motor stuff forever, we were both amazed to run into someone that knew anything about the 3.4Ls highs and lows...

 

There's a guy that brings one of those out to MSCC events every now and then.

 

I really like the looks of those cars, but suprisely those that I have encountered at the road course don't handle near as well as they look.

Maybe not properly setup, but so far out of the 4-5 that I have seen have handled quite poorly on the road courses.

Picture of one the Cobra's

I have video of me passing these cars somewhere.

They are great looking cars and I bet they are still alot of fun to drive.

 

those cars look great, but at the last autox in Ayer MA the factory five company came with 4-5 cars, all on trailers, some were street cars but two were the full race "spec racer" cars on race tires. They were not that impressive in action. there best time, with their race driver behind the wheel" was 2 sec slower than a honda civic in the stock class ( driven by a great driver). the street cars were 8-10 sec behind their race driver. for a car classed in AP I expect better. They did say that there were no cars there with the IRS suspension, and they would be better at autox.
Still they are very cool cars and I would love to have one to cruse with.

 

Here's a great link for you. A fantastic woman, who knows a lot about suspension, built one and, with a little help from her friends, figured out how to set it up correctly. Here is the story, in detail and clearly explained. Note the total emphasis of suspension over horsepower and the winning results over similar cars with more power.

http://eaglewoman.simracing.dk/cobra/index.htm

And nobody caught this? Or cared?

"And I thought I was lazy

http://www.caterham.co.uk/

Thats the official page for the current manufactuer."

Uh, completely different kit car.

 

You can have the "Factory Five". I want this one,
http://www.listercorvette.com/ .

 

The FFR roadsters can handle well if set up properly, even with the crappy opposing four link rear suspension. I used to campaign a spec racer, and that car handled pretty damn good once I got the four link sorted out, and it handled even better with the updated three link/panhard rear suspension. It even did well on autocross, as I took FTD multiple times with mine. Visit this section of my website if you want to see some of the details of the spec racer. This shows the buildup of one of the "prototype" spec racers, and a few things have changed since then.

I ended up selling the car because frankly, they weren't getting enough people in the class on the east coast to make it fun. I'm getting ready to start building a 98 Camaro SS for the American Iron series....I can't wait!!!!

Gary