The ad for today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe FFR GTM says it’s being sold AS IS. That AS IS seems to be pretty desirable, but we’ll still have to see if its price has you saying AS IF!
Modest power, a digital dash, and an upright body that looked like a car, and not a metal cat turd—those were all features of yesterday’s sweet 1988 Mazda 626 GT. Add to that a two-grand asking and what do you get? That’s right, an overwhelming 87% Nice Price win.
Let’s say however, that you were looking for something with a little poop behind the pedal than that old school Mazda could offer, and you had a bit more cash to commit to the endeavor. What might just pique your interest in that event, a C5 Corvette perhaps?
Pfffft, why stop there? You could have that C5 wrapped in even sexier bodywork in a completed kit from a company that’s just as crazy as the people who build kit cars. This 2008 Factory Five GTM is just such a car.
The Smith Brothers founded Factory Five Racing with a brilliant idea: they’d design a 427 Cobra kit that, along with a donor Mustang GT would allow a fairly competent DIY’r to build a drivable car in just a few weekends, and for about twenty grand out the door.
The GTM is the same concept only it uses a C5 ‘Vette for the motor and suspension bits, and costs about double the Cobra kit’s price. The GTM also requires the services of a Porsche or Mendeola transaxle if you want to do anything more than just rev the motor in the driveway.
Now, I have to admit that every time I hear the name Factory Five Racing I’m reminded of that bit in Quintin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman is telling John Travolta about her TV pilot: Fox Force Five. Because of that I will from hereon refer to them as FFR.
And what hath FFR wrought in the GTM? Well, it’s mostly Corvette based, yoinking the suspension bits along with the engine and dropping them in a body that’s reminiscent of a Ford GT40 and a good 600 pounds lighter than its donor ‘Vette. It’s also generally sold as a kit with everything other than the ‘Vette bits and Porsche tranny needed to build yourself a super-dee-duper super car. That includes DOT-approved glass, 3/16” composite body panels, over 80 robot-trimmed aluminum chassis panels, and—get this—over 1,200 rivets.
This one has had almost all the work already done for you. That work includes an LS-something 427 mill and a Porsche GT3 6-speed gearbox sitting pretty behind the cabin. There are also ‘Vette ZO6 six-pot brakes behind the ten-spoke wheels. The kit looks to have been completed without major screw-ups, at least as far can be discovered in the space of a Craigslist ad.
Not everything here is buttercups and beaujolais however. The seller says that he took the car in trade some years ago and has since not been able to get it to run without overheating. The ad says that’s due to it not getting the cooling system to burp correctly, which might be a valid issue, but is more likely something that will require a degree in thermodynamics to deduce. Whatever the cause, the seller says that he’s not touching it and that the car is being sold as-is.
That as-is includes only 150 miles on the clock. It also means you get a massive wing in the back, which at speed should only add to the 57% rearward weight bias these cars maintain. The price for all that is a cool $48,000.
The ad says that over $100K has been sunk into the car as it sits and that it would take $75K just to replicate the build. If we add up the major components—GTM kit $25K; Porsche gearbox $5K; donor Corvette… hmmm, maybe $15K; and that 427 crate motor at about $8K; that gets us to $53K so that sounds about right when you add in the labor. You time is worth a lot right?
How about taking a little bit of that time and determining if this as-is GTM is really worth its $48,000 asking? What do you say, is it worth that to take a gamble on a already built kit car that’s being sold with conditions? Or, is this FFR that has you saying eff that!?
You decide!
Greenville KY Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Grum.man for the hookup!
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