Factory Five Begins Production of the Mk5
Factory Five Racing is rolling out a new version of its Cobra replica called the Mk5 Roadster.
The Mk5 has room for larger drivers and an optional removable hardtop that includes the windshield.
Prices start at $24,990 and the car is in production now—assembly not included.
In an alternate reality, the original Shelby Cobra never died. It stayed in production and, over the decades, was refined and perfected while retaining its essential animalistic character. While we'd argue that Massachusetts doesn't exist in a parallel universe—not entirely—that timeline with more and better Cobras did take shape there, at Factory Five Racing in Wareham. Factory Five got started building Cobra replica kits in 1995, and now 30 years later they're rolling out the fifth generation of their kit, dubbed the Mk5 Roadster. It's still got two seats, a V-8 and DIY instructions, but the Mk5 is a long way from both the car that inspired it and its own immediate predecessor, the Mk4.
In its biggest departure from tradition, the Mk5 uses a rectangular spaceframe instead of a round tube frame. The new frame weighs 55 pounds more than the Mk4 frame, but Factory Five says it delivers a 400 percent increase in rigidity. It's also designed with a more capacious cockpit, accommodating a driver who is 6'5", 330 pounds, and wears size 14 shoes. NFL offensive tackles who are handy with a wrench, step right up.
The roll bar is two inches shorter than before and canted three degrees rearward, but because the floor is 2.5 inches lower, there's actually a half-inch more coverage relative to the driver. (A passenger's-side roll bar is optional.) The shorter roll bar enables the Mk5's most striking visual change: a one-piece removable carbon fiber hard top. Unlike hard tops that are designed to fit over a tall roll bar, this one doesn't have the profile of a freshly bought trucker cap. In fact, it doesn't even look like a convertible top, since it includes its own windshield. Yes, you'll need to remove the standard windshield to fit the hardtop, but that kind of project probably won't daunt a customer who built the whole car.
The Mk5's composite body is delivered with a blue gel coat that doesn't look half bad on its own, with the goal of lowering prices for subsequent paint and bodywork. Factory Five says that one reason the Mk5 costs more than the Mk4 is that its body molds will be discarded more than twice as frequently, to keep panel gaps tight and minimize paint prep time.
On the handling front, the lower front control arms are now forged aluminum, and at the rear both upper and lower control arms are forged aluminum. The frame has two sets of mounting holes, to adjust ride height between street and track setups. Between those front control arms, you can fit the usual assortment of Ford V-8s (or, heresy, a GM LS engine) along with a new option: Ford's 7.3-liter Godzilla crate engine. Derived from the heavy-duty truck powerplants, that monster has an iron block and will doubtlessly impact the car's 2250-pound baseline weight, but it'll fit for those looking for the 427 Cobra brand of overkill.
Factory Five president Dave Smith acknowledges that it doesn't really make sense to develop an all-new car, but he wanted to keep the company's signature product moving forward, so that's what happened. Factory Five will keep building the less expensive Mk4 ($20,990) for traditionalists and more budget-conscious thrill seekers, but the Mk5 is the new flagship in a class of one.
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Motor 1
30-05-2025
- Motor 1
The Toyota Supra Won't Stay Dead For Long
The current Toyota Supra is already on the way out with the Final Edition marking the end of the Mk5's six-year production run in the US. It was fun while it lasted. But don't expect the Supra name to be out of the Toyota lineup for long. In a recent interview with MotorTrend , Toyota has suggested that a new Supra will indeed happen. Better yet, this new one shouldn't take as long to hit the market as the Mk5 did. Hopefully . Photo by: Toyota "It would be logical that we would have a next-gen Supra. But when and how is still TBD," said senior vice president of Product Planning and Strategy for Toyota Motor North America, Cooper Ericksen. "Definitely there will be a gap. The question is how big will that gap be… It is our goal to have a gap that is significantly less [than the last one]." Lest you forget, the Mk4 Supra ended production in the US in 1998, which means it took 21 years for Toyota to revive the Supra name in the US. Thankfully, Toyota promises that we won't have to wait another two decades for the next one. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean we'll see a new Supra next year—or even the year after. Ericksen noted that Toyota still has its 'hands full' producing core products like the latest RAV4 and the ever-popular Camry, among others. It's also unclear if the next Supra will be a jointly developed project like the current one, which Toyota produced alongside BMW's Z4. "A product like Supra, it's made it to a point where now we have a Final Edition, and the reason is it's just not cost-effective with all the new regulations and investment we have to make," Erickson noted. "It needs to be a new house. When we can get the new house built is the question." We'll just have to wait and see. RIP To The Supra Somebody Paid Way Too Much For This Final Edition Supra America's Last Toyota Supra Doesn't Get More Power Source: MotorTrend Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
Motor Trend
29-05-2025
- Motor Trend
1966 Shelby 427 Cobra vs. 1972 Ferrari Daytona Spyder: Gumball Rally Revisited
[This article originally appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of MotorTrend Classic] Given the giddy brew that comprises 1976's 'The Gumball Rally'—dream cars in an illegal race from New York to California (all for glory and a gumball machine), authentic high-speed zooming and vrooming, plenty of anti-establishment gags, plus a steady stream of spectacular stunts and pulchritudinous ladies in shrink-wrapped attire—it's a wonder the movie didn't sweep the Academy Awards. But Gumball took home not a single golden statuette. (In an obvious anti-auto conspiracy, also winning nothing was that year's other big car picture, 'Taxi Driver.') The New York Times, probably put off by Gumball's lack of subtitles, called it 'nothing but one long exhaust pipe.' 0:00 / 0:00 Hel-loooo? We've carefully watched all the big Oscar honorees for 1976—films like 'Network' and 'All the President's Men'—and haven't found a single scene involving a Ferrari Daytona Spyder or a Shelby 427 Cobra. And therein lies the guilty pleasure of 'The Gumball Rally.' For auto aficionados in the Seventies, watching Gumball was like spending 107 minutes inside Willy Wonka's Cheater Slick Factory. After all, owning a car in late-1970s America was a lot like being locked in your room by your parents—without the dirty magazines hidden under your bed. There seemed no end to the things we couldn't do. We couldn't drive over 55 mph—not without Fuzzbusters, anyway. We couldn't buy gas without a reservation. We couldn't own high-horsepower cars without feeling the static cling of Jimmy Carter's cardigan sweater. We couldn't even turn on the car radio, because the Bay City Rollers or Barry Manilow might be on it. Then the first reel rolled on 'The Gumball Rally,' and within 15 minutes the cast had raised a prerace toast that swept aside all societal fouled plugs: 'To internal combustion. And wind in the face.' Okay, 'Macbeth' it isn't. But Gumball fairly glistens with breath-snatching wheels: the sensuous Ferrari, the bulging Cobra, a black Porsche 911, a hopped-up Camaro, a vintage Mercedes 300SL roadster, a Rolls-Royce worth an astronomical '$40,000.' The dialog boasts a few 'Casablanca'-caliber gems, too, including perhaps the most immortal line in car-movie history—when Italian race champ Franco (the late Raul Julia) yanks the rearview mirror off the Ferrari as he declares to teammate Smitty (the late Tim McIntire): 'And now, my friend, the first rule of Italian driving: What's behind me is not important.' Above all, Gumball took our catalyst-choked, fuel-shortaged souls along on a vicarious thrill ride in which the only rule was 'there are no rules.' Who among us hasn't dreamt of doing naughty things with a Porsche right through midtown Manhattan? Who hasn't fantasized about outrunning a police helicopter in a Ferrari that 'must be doing 180 mph'? And who didn't go envy green over the classic, climactic duel between Franco's Daytona and the Cobra of Michael Bannon (Michael Sarrazin) down the semi-dry L.A. River to the finish line at the Queen Mary in Long Beach? Do the pictures on these pages look familiar? They should. That's the same L.A. River you see in Gumball, and those are the actual two cars that appeared in the movie (we look exactly like Sarrazin and Julia, too—at least if you're reading this while seated on a paint shaker). Drive the actual Gumball Rally cars? Who said youthful fantasies never come true? Enthusiasts will recall, of course, that the idea for an illegal cross-country race was hardly original. 'My agent sent me a clipping from the Los Angeles Times about this race from New York to L.A.,' says Chuck Bail, 70, Gumball's producer and director. 'And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, 'What a great idea for a comedy.'' Not finding the idea quite so amusing, though, was then-Car and Driver writer Brock Yates, whose notorious Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash was the illegal race in question and who had plans for his own movie version. 'I was furious about it. Really pissed off,' Yates said. Yet Gumball rolled on. 'I picked every car in the movie,' Bail says. 'The studio tried to force me to use star actors, but my feeling was, the cars are the stars.' Then Bail laughs. 'Also, I wanted to keep the budget down!' Bail remembers the first time he met his 'Franco Bertollini.' 'My agent said, 'You've got to meet this guy, Raul Julia.' And I said, 'I need an Italian!' But unbeknownst to me, Raul had already been prepped on the part. So he auditioned and he was just so Italian, so wonderful. But of course he was a New Yorker. He couldn't drive!' Bail had more difficulty finding his 'Michael Bannon.' 'Finally the studio president said, 'How about Michael Sarrazin?' And I said 'fine,' 'cause we started shooting in three days! But I gotta tell you, Michael was a wonderful choice. While we were filming, though, so many people thought he was Peter Fonda. Used to drive him nuts!' 'Michael was an even worse driver than Raul Julia!' laughs Linda Vaughn, the omnipresent motorsport beauty queen who appears in Gumball as the dishy 'Emergency Plan Alpha' to distract the amorous Franco from the finish line. 'Raul was such fun. I brought my Ferrari 246 to the set to show him how to shift gears, and I think it made Michael jealous—he wanted to go out with me. But the man could not even drive the Cobra! Raul got the hang of it. I was so impressed with how he handled himself. I still have the silk scarf he wears in the movie.' For his four-wheeled stars, Bail had backups. 'We had two of everything,' he says. 'You don't dare do a movie with just one of each car.' Bail's vehicular Noah's Ark included two authentic Cobras (plus one replica that appeared on screen briefly) and two authentic Daytona Spyders. The Cobra you see here, serial number CSX3255, is one of the two genuine cars; both were painted Guardsman Blue during the filming (CSX3255 has since been restored, repainted in red, and fitted with a new hood that lacks a scoop). While shooting, one of the two Cobras (it's unclear which) suffered nose damage during a crash into the L.A. River's concrete wall, forcing Bail to finish filming with the second car (look closely near the movie's end, and you can see the Cobra switch from damaged to undamaged and back again). Like the other film Cobra—CSX3243—the red car is now in private hands in California (see 'Ask the Man Who Owns One'). Gumball also used two genuine Ferrari Daytona Spyders. 'My stuntmen got to dicing with each other while we were filming the night race in Arizona between the Ferrari and the Cobra,' Bail says, 'and the Ferrari driver went off. Totaled the Daytona—and a Panavision camera. Somehow they found me another car in Scottsdale, and I wrote a check for $35,000 so I could finish shooting. At the end of the movie, the studio reimbursed my $35K. Can you believe it? I should've kept the damn car!' The Spyder you see here, serial number 14829, graciously loaned to us from its permanent home at L.A.'s Petersen Automotive Museum ( is likely the second car. According to the best available information, the wrecked Spyder, serial number 16467, was rebuilt, 'crashed' on screen by Kris Kristofferson in 1976's 'A Star Is Born,' and then converted into a 'NART Spyder' (however, one of 14829's earlier owners, former Ferrari racer and repair-shop owner Joseph Crevier, claims his was the Ferrari that appeared in both Gumball and 'A Star is Born'). Eventually, 14829 joined the collection of Noel and Mel (the voice of Bugs Bunny) Blanc before moving to the Petersen seven years ago. Since Gumball, 14829 has been restored and repainted, including new cockpit trim by famed interior specialist Tony Nancy. Both cars are gorgeous. Looking at the two of them side by side on the concrete of the L.A. River, just as they appeared in 'The Gumball Rally,' adolescent memories come flooding back. Why, we drooled over these very machines three decades ago. It's like climbing aboard a time machine and spending a day in 1976 with Farrah Fawcett and Lynda Carter—except the cars won't smack you if you put on a Barry White album. Unexpected for an exotic of its vintage, the Ferrari is a polished jewel (on reflection, perhaps that isn't surprising; this being the model that in the premiere issue of Motor Trend Classic our expert panelists ranked number two on the list of greatest-ever Ferraris). The engine starts easily, the five-speed slots gracefully through the pattern, and the steering quickly shrugs off an initial heaviness to become, as speed builds, quite light and fluid. The four-cam, 4.4-liter V-12 revs like a turbine, and the horses awaken smartly as the tach climbs. Beyond 5000 rpm or so, all 352 of them are racing hard for the 7500-rpm redline, emitting a howl that makes grown men weak in the knees and teenage boys stand in line to watch car movies. Franco and Smitty chose well—you can feel the Ferrari's long legs, its comfort with speed. For an illegal dash across the country, the Daytona would make a brilliant accomplice (and, in fact, in 1971 a Daytona coupe carried Brock Yates and racing legend Dan Gurney to a win in the Cannonball, averaging 80 mph over nearly 2900 miles and once reaching 176 mph). Gun this beauty through the gears, listen to it sing the high notes, and you can only smile and say, as Franco would, 'She is happy.' If the Ferrari is from Venus, the Shelby 427 Cobra is a beast from Mars. Climb aboard the Cobra, and you're tying yourself onto a rodeo bull—hell, this thing might even kick you if you try to climb back out. Twist the ignition, and the race-bred 7.0-liter big-block V-8 crackles and shudders, the flimsy aluminum body quivers like an overgrown Chihuahua, and soon your toes are slow-roasting against the firewall. You're still in neutral. The four-speed shifter juts out of the floor like a crooked cactus but finding the gear notches is effortless. Press in the clutch pedal (precursor to the Nautilus calf machine), tickle the throttle, and…sorry. We unintentionally clenched shut every bodily orifice just remembering how the Cobra charges off the line. All the acceleration clichés come to mind: aircraft-carrier catapults, NASA rockets, teenage girls catching sight of Leonardo DiCaprio. Driving this thing across the country would be pure masochism, but, man, even after four decades the Cobra has lost none of its famed bite. There's so much torque you can start off in fourth gear if you want. Put it in first, and it'd humiliate almost anything made today (it feels way quicker than the 5.3-second 0-to-60 time we recorded on skinnier tires—and with two aboard—in 1966). Legend has it that the Cobra could rocket from 0 to 100 and back to 0 in under 14 seconds—and from the way this one crushed our eyeballs, we believe it. Which car wins our Gumball Rally rematch? Without Emergency Plan Alpha on hand to bust loose a clear victor, we're happy to call it a draw, a question of taste—the Ferrari's Toscanini virtuosity versus the Cobra's shattering heavy metal. Besides, as Franco says in Gumball when yet another young lovely diverts his attention, 'Some things are more important than winning.' 1972 Ferrari 365GTS/4 Daytona Spyder Expect to Pay: Concours ready: $750,000 (perhaps $800,000 or more with Hollywood connection); solid driver: $600,000; tired runner: $500,000 Join The Club: Ferrari Club of America; Our Take Then: 'The Daytona Spyder will provide all the thrills a sane man could want and do it with full security at a level where lesser machinery might feel as though it were reaching escape velocity.'—Chuck Queener, Motor Trend, December 1971. Now: As scene-stealing as it ever was. And rare to boot: This car is one of only about 120 genuine Daytona Spyders built from 1969 through 1974 (thanks to abundant coupe-to-convertible conversions since then, of those original Spyders about 250 exist today). Still feels seriously fast, still feels robust. We'd gladly take one on a cross-country race tomorrow. Currently in the collection of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles ( 1966 Shelby 427 Cobra Ask The Man Who Owns One The Cobra's owner, a businessman and attorney in California's central valley who prefers not to be identified, says he didn't learn his car was used in 'The Gumball Rally' until after he bought it in 2002. 'It was a nice surprise,' he says, 'but really I'd always just wanted a Cobra. I used to own a replica, but when I had enough money I started looking for an original.' Why He Likes It: 'Running through the gears! I probably put 300 to 400 miles a year on the car driving it through the twisties. I've had it up to about 140 mph. But the handling is pure 1966. I can't imagine how anyone raced these cars on a road course.' Why It's Collectible: Shelby built only 348 427 Cobras (including 21 competition cars) from 1965 to 1967. Without question, the baddest automobile of the 1960s—it's a dream for many enthusiasts just to see one. Restoring/Maintaining: 'I have my Cobra maintained by a very talented guy named Brian Frick,' says the owner. 'When I bought the car it had already been restored, so I really haven't had to do anything major to it.' Expect To Pay: Concours ready: $700,000; solid driver: $550,000; tired runner: $400,000 Join The Club: Shelby American Automobile Club; Our Take Then: 'Although amazingly tractable and untemperamental for such a powerful machine, this is clearly not a car for everyone. If you want to pretend that every stop light is the grid at Nürburgring or every freeway the Mulsanne straight, forget it. You can't afford the tickets.'—Bob Schilling, MT, September 1966. Now: Still one of the most visceral and exciting rides ever put on four wheels. Fast, loud, unabashedly primal. Might want to go on a low-residue diet before you start it up.
USA Today
27-05-2025
- USA Today
New Ping irons, Cobra x Chipotle, and more
New Ping irons, Cobra x Chipotle, and more This week's Get Equipped newsletter highlights new Ping i240 irons making their PGA Tour debut, Cobra collaborating with Chipotle, and more. Titleist brought its next generation of T-Series irons – the updated T100, T150, T250 and T350 irons, along with the T250•U and U•505 utility irons – to the Charles Schwab Challenge last week. Twenty players in the field added at least one of the new clubs to their bag, including Bud Cauley, who finished third (T250 3- and 4-irons), and Aldrich Potgieter, who finished T-6 (T250 2-iron; T100 4- and 5-irons). This week at the Memorial Tournament, Ping is bringing the new i240 iron and the iDi driving irons to the PGA Tour for the first time. We're still about two months away from the British Open at Royal Portrush, so if you thought the surge in demand for high-lofted fairway woods was going to kill off driving irons, think again. Brands are still making clubs for fast-swinging players who want a low-launching option off the tee that still allows them to shape the ball right or left. The best way to find the ideal clubs to bridge your fairway woods to your iron set is to work with a good custom fitter, but here are a few general concepts to keep in mind: Fairway woods : Even with the same loft, fairway woods, which typically have the widest sole and a center of gravity that is lower and farther back, are more forgiving, create the most distance and send the ball higher than hybrids or driving irons. : Even with the same loft, fairway woods, which typically have the widest sole and a center of gravity that is lower and farther back, are more forgiving, create the most distance and send the ball higher than hybrids or driving irons. Hybrids : The Swiss Army knife of golf equipment, hybrids are easier to hit than long irons, can be used off the tee and from the fairway, even around the green to hit awkward chip shots. They produce more height than irons but tend to fly lower than fairway woods. : The Swiss Army knife of golf equipment, hybrids are easier to hit than long irons, can be used off the tee and from the fairway, even around the green to hit awkward chip shots. They produce more height than irons but tend to fly lower than fairway woods. Driving irons: These clubs produce the lowest flight and are ideal for use in windy, firm conditions. The flat face of driving irons also makes it easier to hit a draw, fade or knock-down shot, and when fitted with a graphite shaft, modern driving irons produce surprisingly high ball speeds. Click here to see a great list of 2025 irons for every level of golfer, playing style and budget.
