Great Article by Dave Smith - Helps me better understand

[Gumball]

I thought I’d share something I came across in a magazine I had laying around the shop from four years ago. Below is an article written by Dave Smith – I transcribed it here in hopes that it will serve as an introduction to those who are new to the FFR family, and a reminder to those who’ve been around a while, of how Dave Smith and the crew at FFR view themselves, us, and our relationship. Sure, FFR is a business, but their product isn’t a typical commodity… it’s something that requires the buyer to have passion and, I think, no small amount of romanticism.

Some will dismiss this as “drinking the FFR kool-aid” or other snark, but there really is something different about these kits, the finished cars, and all of us. For the most part, we’re drawn to the challenge of becoming part of a very small fraternity – not many people in the course of history have built their own cars.

Of course, just like other businesses, FFR sometimes has issues, falls short on expectations, or causes frustration. After all, they’re people, just like us… family and friends who make up the occasionally not so perfect community in which we play.

So thanks, Dave and crew, for bringing a bit of old-world back to our modern one. I, for one, will lament the day when small companies with their own personality give way completely to efficient, faceless corporations with precision products that have no individuality and perfect twenty-four hour support. After all, I don’t want my fast car to be like fast food.


FROM THE 2011 KIT CAR MAGAZINE FACTORY FIVE ANNUAL – BY Dave Smith

More than 100 years ago my great grandfather, John Smith, like millions of European immigrants, came to America with not much more than a few bags, his new bride, and his skills as a blacksmith. John and Francis Smith settled in a small town in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. He would become the town blacksmith and they would have six sons, the youngest of whom was my grandfather, Ted Smith.

As a young boy, I was raised listening to the stories that my father would tell of John Smith and his six sons and all their adventures. I remember one story where John Smith was summoned to help a stranded steam engine with a broken turnbuckle in the remote mountains, without many tools, John Smith built a furnace and forged steel bands which he used to wrap bundles of fresh cut trees that were then used to splint the broken shaft – strong enough to return the locomotive more than 50 miles to the station! Those days people had to innovate solutions, and their motivations were, at times, perhaps more serious. Still, from those stories I learned that we are, in many ways, living and repeating the lives of those who came before us.

From our family stories, I think my great grandfather was a realistic version of Longfellows’ poem, “The Village Blacksmith.” On Sunday after church, his wife would have him open up his shop to let the neighborhood women gather and bake bread in his furnace. The tradition lasted many years and while metal was forged six days a week, friendship and community was formed on the seventh day as folks gathered to bake bread and enjoy each other’s company. John Smith was known as a very honest and hard-working man and I enjoy thinking of the modest way he forged friendships in a small town a hundred years ago.

Within a decade or so of the turn of the century, the need for blacksmiths was already fading. The advent of the automobile would spell the end of my family’s traditional craft, and John Smith would tell his sons to seek other paths. Other than the name “Smith,” the trade would be left behind for three generations.

When my brother and I started Factory Five Racing in 1995, it was my father who reminded us that we were returning to our family tradition of blacksmithing. The tools were different for sure. The bellows and furnace gave way to CNC-cut steel and MIG welding machines, but blacksmiths we were once again! There are many parallels about what we do at Factory Five Racing, and what our great grandfather did a hundred years ago. The fact that it was the automobile which spelled the end of our family craft that had endured for so many generations, would be the very thing that would return the Smith boys to smithing, which was one thing.

The community is another shared aspect of what we do. Friendships forged at my great grandfather’s blacksmith shop a hundred years ago were made the same way we make them today, and Factory Five is indeed an extension of that same fellowship and community. We work hard, no doubt, but just as important is the way in which we work. In 15 years we have done some great things. We’ve built over 8,000 chassis kits, we’ve set a world record at Bonneville with our Type 65 Coupe, we’ve been on the cover of several major magazines, and Factory Five has earned top honors at the industry’s biggest show, the annual SEMA show. Still, beyond all those amazing accomplishments that this company can crow about, the thing I’m most proud of is the community we’ve helped build with our cars. There’s something special about building your own car, and often times the stories you make along the way become even more important than the amazing car you just built.

[Kalstar]

****After all, I don’t want my fast car to be like fast food.****

Best quote I have read on here in nearly 8 years.

Very good read. Thx for posting.

[rely]

in view of kit the kit car industry, Dave certainly has made a huge impact. I hope the wheel thing and the attendant naysayers don't negatively affect the remarkable result.

[myjones]

in view of kit the kit car industry, Dave certainly has made a huge impact. I hope the wheel thing and the attendant naysayers don't negatively affect the remarkable result.

What wheel thing are you referring to ?
DB

[rely]

backorders.

[Al_C]

Great article. Thanks for posting it, Chris!