The beginning

I'm starting this blog to chronicle my build of a Factory Five Racing 33 Ford Hot Rod. My good friend Steve Gross, who also helped me build my Cobra and was my long time hangar mate, will be helping me in the build. This should be a fun adventure.

I've been trying to go through the things that will be necessary to get started on this build. Since I've sold my hangar I no longer have the luxury of a large work area so we will be building this in my third garage stall of my three car garage. When you're used to a lot of free space you have to really rethink things when you change to a somewhat smaller space.

Thus far we've flown out to Greensboro, NC to a company called Whitby Motorcar who will be painting the car for me, they painted my Cobra and did a fantastic job, as well as they will be doing some extra items for me on this car. Our visit was to review with Jeff, at Whitby, what they would be doing for me and also to see other 33's that they were working on. It was a very productive trip for us. We were able to see some things others were doing on their 33 build and just by co-incidence they had a 33 kit there that a client of theirs ordered but had not started on and had decided he wasn't going to go forward with the build, so I ended up buying this kit, so I now have the kit to get started with.

One of my first tasks was to figure out what to do with the garage to get it ready for the build. When we're finished I'll have a Cobra and this 33 but not enough garage space for them both, so I've decided to add a 4 post car lift in my third stall to solve this problem. We'll be able to use this lift during the build to lift up the car to work under it, which will be great. So I've got Overhead Door coming out this week to install a direct drive motor on my third car door opener and to raise the tracks of the door up close to the ceiling. This will allow me enough space to lift one car up close to the ceiling and park the other under it. I've ordered a new 9000 lb 4 post lift from BenPak which is a very good lift. They will be installing the lift next week, I hope.

Steve and I will be going to Boston at the beginning of Aug for a day to visit the Factory Five Racing facility, which is the company who supplies the kit. We should hopefully gain some more in sites, I hope. Going to see if we can find Cheers Bar while we're there, maybe Norm will be there : )

We're then heading over from there to Howell, MI, which is just south of Detroit about an hour, to attend a three day weekend 33 Hot Rod Build School. We've built the Cobra but we're hoping this school will give us some building tricks for the 33 to save us some build time. It hopefully should be interesting and productive.

Traudl and I are then heading over to Germany for a visit and we will also be visiting Italy and then hopefully when we get back in the beginning of Sept we can start the building process in earnest.

Here are a couple photos of what we will be building. If you click on a photo it will enlarge.