The trigger has been pulled.

Moments ago I submitted an order form and a $1,000 deposit for the Factory Five Roadster Mk4. 

Note that it is not described as a Cobra - Carroll Shelby would not allow that word to be used by Factory Five. Doesn't really matter what Shelby wanted - people call them Cobras anyway.

Sorry about that, Carroll. 

The ordering process was time consuming, especially when it came to parts that I had only a passing familiarity of. The most difficult decision was the engine. The 427 was too big for the car, in my opinion, and the 302 seemed too close to the performance I get from my SLK 280. That left the Ford 347 fuel injected. Just over 400 hp. 

That will be ample. 

For the remainder of the car, we stayed pretty close to the standard kit. Items like side mirrors etc. will be ordered later. Things like that are also available from other vendors if we want to use some things that aren't on every other Factory Five Not-a-Cobra. I'm not especially married to the thing being a almost-replica of a Cobra; I'm just looking for a good performing road car that I can use like I often use my airplane. I fly the plane around with no destination all the time. It's fun. 

I'm assuming simply driving the Not-a-Cobra will be just as enjoyable to drive sans destination.

For now it's just a matter of waiting. I am assuming (again!) that they will respond with an acknowledgment of the order and the expected wait time. I'm guessing it will be a couple of months,

Stay tuned, it's about to get interesting! Eventually.

Decisions. A LOT of decisions!

 I travelled out to The Shop yesterday to meet with the President and the Chief Mechanic. There are many decisions yet to be made. In fact, not one single thing has been decided, up to and including which Factory Five car to build. 

"What?? I thought this was a blog about building a Cobra replica - what do you mean which car to build??"

Here's what happened. After a lengthy discussion with the Chief Mechanic to discuss the multitude of options I thought the path had clarified a little bit. But... once I got home I got to thinking that I actually hadn't done any kind of due diligence. 

due dil·i·gence

noun

LAW

1. reasonable steps taken by a person in order to satisfy a legal requirement, especially in buying or selling something.

   • a comprehensive appraisal of a business undertaken by a prospective buyer, especially to establish its assets and liabilities and evaluate its commercial potential.

   
   

In our case, we are not going to look at any other vendors. Factory Five is to kit cars as Van's Aircraft is to Experimental kit planes - each is dominant in their slice of the "build neat stuff yourself" market. You will want to get used to comparisons between the F5 car kit and the Van's RV-12 that I built. There are a lot of similarities, but there also just as many unique aspects to each build. 

On the subject on hand, the ordering process for the airplane was far easier than ordering the car. The airplane kit included the engine, so there was nothing to decide on that subject, and at the time the only real decision to be made on the airplane was Garmin or Dynon avionics.

Probably because I was tired and my head was packed full of great advice from the Chief, I set all of that aside and decided that I really ought to take a look at some of the other kits available from Factory Five. I have been watching F5's website for at least 30 years, but never really considered anything but the Cobra kit (note that they don't use the word "Cobra" for legal reasons, but I'm going to) so I was unaware of a very different kit. Same price, but a very different take. 

Having failed at making a long story short, here are two models that rocked my world:

'33 Hot Rod:

I shrugged that one off easily enough, but this one really made me do some thinking:

'35 Pickup:

This option would provide two things that the Cobra would never have: a hardtop and room for luggage, etc. There is a lot to be said for both of those advantages. 

Having slept on it, I'm still not sure that pickup wouldn't make more sense than a Cobra. 

The build would be very similar, but there wouldn't be the same level of peer-level help to be found and it might not have the same level of camaraderie that comes with the Cobra. I don't know that I really care about the latter aspect, and as far as the complexity and assumed uniqueness of the build goes, I have absolutely no worries - I have complete faith in the Chief Mechanic's abilities. 

Most of the questions that I had on my list are valid for either of the models. I had the following bullets on my list:

• Power Steering? Yes.
• Sway bars: Yes. Not sure that's applicable for the truck. Sway bars improve handling. We're heavily biased towards a nimble street car vs. a fire-breathing drag racer.
• Solid axle or Independent Rear Suspension (IRS): Definitely IRS for the Cobra, don't know if its a choice on the pickup. Again, IRS improves handling, and avoids using a decades-old Ford axle.
• Buy wheels from F5, or on local market? They're needed fairly early in the build.
• 15" or 17" wheels? 15" tires will have a higher sidewall (works against handling) while 17" will have less play in the sidewalls, but won't look as good on either model.
• Do I need a catalytic converter? That's up to Ohio. I'll have to research that further.
• Engine? Two main categories: 302 or 427. Another way of saying that is "small block or large block?" On the Cobra I would prefer the small block, mostly because they're physically smaller and there's not a lot of room under the hood. I don't want a huge about of horsepower that I can't really use, so I'm leaning towards a small block. The pickup is likely to be a bit lighter on the back wheels - too much horsepower will make it harder to drive. And again: either model is going to be a light, nimble car, not a fire-breathing hard to drive monster. This is all theory - I'm going to have to determine how much difference there is between those options.
• Manual or Hydraulic clutch? Hydraulic. 
• Seats. Order with the kit, or look at other options. TBD. 
• Air Conditioner. Definite YES for the truck. Maybe for the Cobra.
• Brakes: the ones included in the kit (Ford Mustang GT system) or upgrade? Leaning towards the ones that come with the kit. After driving the Chief's 400+ hp Chevy S-10 pickup, I want power brakes. It took more boot that I possess to stop that truck.
• Gear ratio: biased towards handling a road course. 

This is just the start of trying to know what I don't know. I had thought it would take a day or two to get the order form prepared, but I was wrong. There are many, many decisions to be made before I can order a kit - it now looks like its going to be a lengthy process. I'm spoiled for choices - I feel like I'm making decisions without fully understanding the full ramifications of them.

I figured that taking some time to read the build manual might help. I found a manual on the internet. It didn't take long at all for the build manual to convince me that I could not possibly build this kit without the Chief Mechanic. I had assumed this to be true from the start, but it was still a shock to see how sparse the build manual is compared to that of the airplane. That's probably just a matter of getting used to it, though. 

But hey, if this was exactly like building the airplane, there would be nothing new for me to learn.