Building a Factory Five Roadster
Detailing the planning and building of my Factory Five replica Cobra.
Tomorrow I’m headed down to Factory Five. I did a factory tour about a year ago, but tomorrow’s is a bit different. I’m going to do the tour, but instead of taking a few photos from the showroom and heading out after, its time to sit down and talk to someone there about what exactly I want to build… and order the kit.
Its a big day!
Last night I started building out a “build spreadsheet” with a list of every little detailed part I could reasonably identify I needed to order. As they say in the Boy Scouts, be prepared. If I know what parts I need up front and get them ordered in time, I’m less likely to have a rare bit of time to work on the car and not have a part I need. It also helps me focus on what exactly I want to do.
Now I’m a bit embarrassed to say, especially if I was to sit here and describe the mini data center in my basement, that this is actually the second time I’ve made a build spreadsheet. I did one in exhaustive detail a year ago. I had it on my laptop, thought it was backed up and reinstalled the OS on the laptop.
Oops.
So now I have to do it all over again.
The purpose of this site should be self-evident from its title. I generally dislike the term “blog” and won’t use that term on here, since its a trendy term for something people have been doing online for fifteen years. However, thats basically what this is — a diary of the process of building a specific replica ’65 Cobra Roadster, using the excellent kit from Factory Five Racing and its associated community of enthusiasts.
I’m hoping ReplicaBuilding.com, through its wiki, can turn into a valuable resource for all Roadster builders, as well as other replica car builders and enthusiasts. This WordPress “journal”, however, is my own personal experience. Its the process I’m going through to plan, purchase and build MY car.
When I get into the actual build process, the entries in this part of the site will be linked to the appropriate sections of the Wiki, where I can discuss specifics of how I undertook a particular step of the build, and where others can contribute their experiences.