New Factory Five XTF Stage 1 Is a Less Complicated Desert Racer

Car and Driver

4 days ago

Factory Five Racing now offers a simpler Stage 1 version of its XTF truck kit for the 2015–2020 Ford F-150.
By retaining the original frame, the $9990 Stage 1 kit cuts build time and keeps the stock full-sized bed.
Carbon body panels are a $6999 option, but that price might double once in-stock supplies run out and tariffs affect future orders.
If the Factory Five Racing XTF truck caught your eye but seemed like a little much—both financially and mechanically—there's now a new, simplified version called the XTF Stage 1. It keeps the original version's massively flared desert-racer bodywork but eschews the full frame replacement in favor of a more traditional bolt-on suspension swap. The result looks much the same but costs $9990 instead of $24,990. And, perhaps more important for the not so mechanically inclined, the new kit should require 50 to 60 hours of installation labor (not including paint) versus the original's 200-plus hours.
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Car and Driver
The carbon body is currently a $6999 option.
Like the full-strength XTF, the Stage 1 is 90 inches wide and accommodates 37-inch-tall tires. It's also designed for 2015–2020 Ford F-150s with either the 5.0-liter V-8 or the turbocharged 3.5-liter V-6. But you won't need to pull the cab off and ditch the frame, instead bolting on new upper and lower control arms and Fox dampers up front, and fitting new long-travel progressive-rate leaf springs and Fox dampers at the rear.
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Car and Driver
Since it retains the original frame, the Stage 1 also keeps a full-size bed.
The Stage 1 front suspension delivers 14 inches of travel, only two inches less than that of the version with the custom frame. The rear isn't going to touch the 20 inches of travel offered by the XTF custom four-link design, but the leaf-spring rear end is the better ticket for towing, if that's part of your truckin' habits. The Stage 1 also retains a full-depth pickup bed, unlike its forebear.
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Car and Driver
The flared fenders and upgraded suspension make room for 37-inch-tall tires.
The kit comes with everything you need, including longer front brake hoses, heavy-duty ball joints, longer front CV axles, and a new fuel fill tube. But carbon-fiber aficionados—and aren't we all?—can specify carbon body panels for an additional $6999. However, that price will remain in effect only as long as the company has panels in stock, which it estimates will be the case roughly until the end of the year. After that, the price could double thanks to tariffs. (While the fiberglass panels are made in Massachusetts, the carbon ones are sourced from China, which has become a go-to for carbon-fiber expertise.) The price of the kit itself is also slated to rise to $12,490, probably toward the end of the year or beginning of 2026.
Ezra Dyer
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Car and Driver
The kit's A-arms and Fox dampers deliver 14 inches of front suspension travel.
We had a great time with the original XTF on Silver Lake Dunes and at the Team O'Neil Rally School, but the Stage 1 offers the same look and much of the capability for less than half the price. So if pulling the cab off a truck is not exactly part of your mechanical skill set and you don't regularly see two feet of daylight under your tires, maybe the Stage 1 is all the XTF you need.
Ezra Dyer
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Car and Driver
Ezra Dyer
Senior Editor
Ezra Dyer is a Car and Driver senior editor and columnist. He's now based in North Carolina but still remembers how to turn right. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and once drove 206 mph. Those facts are mutually exclusive.