From a Dartmouth shop to Wareham: Factory Five's three decades of build-it-yourself cars

WAREHAM At the end of Tow Road in Wareham, Factory Five Racing's full-time crew of about 40 people makes the frames and bodies of cars that will be finished in their buyers' own garages. The company calls itself the world's largest maker of component car kits, and its president, Dave Smith, wrote that the company has built and shipped more than 16,000 vehicle kits since it began in 1995.

The company's slogan is "Built, Not Bought." Every Factory Five is built by a customer, the company says, and its kits are sold in all 50 states and most countries.

It started in Dartmouth

Smith wrote that he moved from Huntington Beach, California, to New England in January 1995 to start the business with his brother in a small three-car garage. Steve Temple, then the editor of Kit Car Magazine, came to "our Dartmouth, Massachusetts shop" to test-drive and review the prototype, a Cobra replica built from the parts of a single donor Mustang. That first car, the Mk1, "would put Factory Five Racing on the automotive map," he wrote. He counts more than 30 magazine covers since then and more than $3 million raised for charities.

Smith traces the work back further, to his great-grandfather John Smith, an immigrant who became the blacksmith of a small town in Pennsylvania's Allegheny Mountains. When the company opened, Smith wrote, his father reminded him "that this was a return to our family tradition of blacksmithing in a way." In the modern version, "the bellows and furnace are now CNC cutting machines and MIG welders."

What comes off Tow Road

The company says its headquarters covers a combined 62,000 square feet and that a 181-kilowatt solar array powers every chassis and the rest of the operation. Parts are drawn in design software and cut by laser, but each frame is still welded by one man, and the fixture for the Mk4 roadster has turned out more than 1,000 Mk4 frames. The warehouse tracks more than 4,500 bar-coded parts. The Association of Handbuilt Automobiles has given the company its Good Manufacturing Practices award three times.

In more than 30 years the company has designed and sold 11 vehicle kits, and the best seller has always been the Cobra replica, revised four times. The lineup also includes a '33 Hot Rod, a '35 Hot Rod pickup, the Type 65 Coupe (a replica of the 1965 Daytona Coupe) and the XTF, a kit that turns a 2015 to 2020 Ford F-150 into an off-road truck.

The newest is the Mk5 Roadster, launched to start the company's 30th anniversary. Smith wrote that he told Jim Schenck, the director of research and development, that he wanted "a revolution, not just an evolution" of the design. The new cockpit fits a driver who is 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 330 pounds, the company says. At the launch, Smith put the Mk5 at $24,990 and said the Mk4 would stay in production at $20,990. The Mk4 base kit is listed today at $14,990. He doubted the project would earn back the investment. "If investors and bean counters ran the company, the Mk5 would likely not exist. But they don't, and I do," he wrote.

From the dock to the driveway

A $1,000 deposit puts a kit on the production schedule, and buyers can change the order until 10 days before it ships. An engineer calls each buyer to go over the order before it is built. Buyers pay for shipping from Wareham or pick the kit up at the factory for free, which also saves the crate fee. A crated kit is 16 feet long, 52 inches tall and 6 feet 6 inches wide. Many buyers use an independent hauler, Cunningham Transport, which picks kits up at the dock and delivers them for a flat rate, the company says.

Buyers who want practice first can take the company's three-day Build School at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, where students take a roadster or hot rod from the bare frame to a finished car. Tuition is $999, graduates get $250 off a kit, and more than 6,000 people have finished the class since 2002, the company says.

Counting down to Las Vegas

This month the shop is counting down to what it calls "the Super Bowl of car shows," the SEMA Show, set for Tuesday, Nov. 3, to Friday, Nov. 6, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The countdown opened Tuesday, Oct. 20, with a discount on the '35 Hot Rod pickup and its new independent rear suspension, and a daily offer runs each weekday through Monday, Nov. 2. The show is for the trade only, except on Nov. 6, when it opens to the public.

Factory Five gives tours by appointment on weekdays at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The office at 9 Tow Road is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and the phone number is 508-291-3443.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.