Journey to the source

Once upon a time I was having a coffee with a friend and we were talking about our usual car stuff. At the time I was looking at all the options of getting my hands on the Factory Five kit. I guess I complained enough about all the costs involved in transporting it over to make him say "just go pick it up". It's not that I did not consider that before but at that moment it occurred to me as plausible. More details to follow. It would cost me about $1200 to have the kit shipped. But it would only come to somewhere a tow truck can pick it up and perform the final delivery. So there's a cost for the tow truck too. Now, since the kit would be coming on the fright train, it would have to be boxed in a crate (read as $600). Put the tax on top and we are in over $2000 just to have it in my garage. In fact, that's probably word to word what I said to my friend over that coffee. The option of picking it up may sound cheaper but is it really? UHaul would charge me over $1200 for the renal of the pickup and the trailer. Add hotel and gas to that and we are getting awfully close to that shipping cost. But at that coffee moment, I remembered that I had a friend whom I haven't spoken to for years and he had a pick up and interested in cars. He just might be up for a little trip to US with me. In fact, I called him right away and to my surprise he got excited about the trip. Turns out, he even knows somebody who could borrow a trailer to us. During moments like that I start to believe that there's someone out there looking out for me. :)

My plan was to go over in April. The main idea was that the weather would be nice enough to work on the car. When it's too cold it's just a teaser: it's there but you'd freeze the minute you'd step outside. Also, the drive would be easier on us if there was no snow. So the date was set! Factory Five was waiting and the hotel was booked with no refund option. Come the day and ...

the freezing rain comes. There is an inch of ice on the road and the truck is cocooned in ice too. The plan was to leave in the morning on Friday. Drive leisurely to the Wareham MA. Check into the hotel and find a pub. Well that was not going to happen. My friend showed up at my door step after 2:00 pm. We quickly dropped all the necessary things into the truck and were off to the US. The most important task at that moment was to get out of city before the rush hour. Which slowly turned into: get over the border. Followed by: make it to the hotel. Google maps assured us that it would take about 9.5 hours. Will's (the friend) GPS was stubbornly showing arrival time early next morning. We drove non stop for as much as we could but the GPS was right and there was nothing we could do about it with cops on the road. By now, we ate all the snacks we had in the truck and had to stop for food. In fact, it was our first stop for the trip for needs other than gas and washroom. It was 12:00 am, however. On the positive note, we where only one hour away from the hotel. (It was sincerely a positive note after 8 hours of driving). What made the things even more hectic is the fact that Factory Five was waiting for us at 8:00 am that morning. With no time to loose we hit the road. But of course, then I missed the exit off of the toll highway and had to make a loop. At the time Will reassured me that if the hotel were to give away our room they would have done so by now. As I was driving, I was thinking of how disappointed I would be if the already paid room was given away and now we would be left to sleep in this truck. However, sleeping in the truck was not meant to be. The room was waiting for us and at 2:00 am we were checking in. Obviously, the beers were not an option anymore but the shower, conformable bed and a breakfast in the morning meant a lot to us. 

Next morning we made it over to the Factory Five. We where not the first ones over. There was already a pickup with a kit loaded onto the trailer. We later learned that the person was also a Canadian and was on his way home to Ottawa. We were advised to load the kit first since one more party would come later and we all would take the tour of the factory. Both, Will and I, were surprised how well the kit fitted into pickup bed and trailer. There were about 14-15 boxes and they all nicely fitted into the truck bed with one box on the back seat. Even the chassis and body fitted nicely on the 12' long trailer. We were thinking it would be overhanging by a foot and a half. It did overhang but it was almost negligible.

By now, the other people showed up for their 33 Ford kit and we took the tour.

The rotisserie frame

The fiberglass molds

The assembly of frame, aluminium panels and fiberglass body

And the lucky Cobras who found their good home awaiting the pick up.

All in all the tour was interesting but the take awaymessage is simple:

These guys have the best job

The following should illustrate my point

The last one is the prototype car based on Subaru Impreza. They get to tweak it until some time this summer before it goes into production. Now they have a few go-karts parked next to the loading door. I am sure I would quit my coffee habit if I were to take those for a spin at my breaks instead. 

We had to part with Factory Five. But before I move on to the boring 950 km, here's one more pic from the show room

And the last one with the shiny big truck

For the next 10 hours we had a small red car following us very closely. But now we both were excited, exhausted but excited. We got some people gave us thumbs up, honks and even a little girl waived. It was a great feeling to see this in the rear view mirror

It actually brightened up our day. The fact that it was raining all day nonstop did not matter. We did complain about the absolute lack of descent food at the road stops but in the end it was pure fun. Luckily, we did not have any problems at the customs and were heading home. We did end up getting home past 10:00 pm. My wife prepared a nice dinner. It was very much needed after all the fast food and snacks that we were surviving on for the past 2 days. We had a beer and called it a day. It was our chance to catch up on some sleep.

Next morning a few of my buddies showed up to help getting the car of the trailer into the garage. I was stunned by their eagerness to get to work. It took us no time to get everything off loaded.

And the end result

It was a long couple of days but the joy of seeing this was overwhelming. The next burning desire is to see what in those boxes. he he ... I hope she does not find out I posted this pic :)