Each week we'll update our Web visitors on our progress right here with photos, video, and diary entries. Check back weekly as we share our progress, tips, anecdotes, and more while we assemble our Factory Five Racing roadster right before your eyes. And don't forget to get the full story in an upcoming issue of Mustang & Fords.
September 24, 2007
Total Build Time: 537 hours
We're getting closer to having color on our Roadster project as the guys at KR Performance & Restorations work full time on our project now. As I mentioned in a previous diary entry about body modifications, there are certain things that can be easily done to the FFR fiberglass body to give it a more authentic look. One of them is to extend the hood into the hood scoop opening. Doing so makes the hood scoop look like it was fastened to the hood versus being a molded part of it. If you really wanted to I guess you could also build up the scoop's lines and add rivets around it as well, but we just did the extension. The scoop's under side was also smoothed with body filler in preparation to paint the underside of the hood.
For the trunk the fiberglass inner edge was blended into the aluminum liner. Some people polish the liner or leave it bare aluminum, but we opted to paint it body color. The newer FFR trunk lid does away with the aluminum liner all together with an all fiberglass trunk lid assembly.
October 11, 2007
Total Build Time: 559 hours
Ask any owner of a fiberglass bodied car (or one using fiberglass fenders) and they'll tell you their number one fear is star cracks from a tire throwing a stone into the underside of the fiberglass body. We knew it would be important to protect our killer paintjob from debris such as this and we also wanted to cover the exposed fiberglass for a more eye pleasing look in the trunk and engine compartment areas. After much research we came across the LizardSkin product. LizardSkin is a ceramic based spray on product that acts as a barrier to heat transfer, reduces noise, and also protects surfaces from moisture and corrosion. Best of all LizardSkin is a class-A fire rated product. With the LizardSkin being applied via a spray applicator there are no seams, no gaps, and no waste. We covered the whole body in a .040-inch layer (recommended) and then doubled the wheel well areas to .080-inch for crack protection.
October 19, 2007
Total Build Time: 571 hours
An email today from Bob Roeder at KR Performance & Restorations made my day when he told me paint had been delivered and that they had started to cut in the inside of several panels, including the hood, trunk and doors. Images here show the hood in primer and then the first coat of the Ford Tungsten Gray Pearl Metallic base being applied. Since the first time I saw the Tungsten color on the Ford GT supercar I knew I wanted to paint something with this sexy color. The only fly in the soup is the wife and I still haven't picked a stripe color. If I let her have her way the stripe would be purple. I originally thought of black or some sort of graphite color (I even contemplated carbon fiber look stripes). Bob sprayed a sample with some stripe colors for us to look at (shown here) and there's a few more stripe colors being considered that he hasn't sprayed samples of yet. Once we choose a stripe color there's also the follow up decisions as to whether we paint it as a solid stripe or some sort of ghost stripe and if we should add the pinstripes to the outer edges and what color those pinstripes should be (matching the main stripe or some sort of contrast). Decisions, decisions!
Factory Five Racing
For more information about the 65 MK3 Roadster from Factory Five Racing, contact them at www.factoryfive.com
Factory Five is even following along with our build. Check out their story!
Factory Five Racing Discussion Forum
If you're thinking about a FFR roadster, you might want to look at the great forum hosted by Bill Pierce at ffcobra.com. This site has many answers to building these cars, events, insurance, registration, and more!