What a blast! Another great Huntington Beach Cruise-In is over and I’m back in New England wondering if the last few days were just a dream! The crew did an exceptional job and the customers delivered huge with some of the best builds and most inspiring stories. The one-day event brings us west each year, and this year’s 10th Annual cruise-in was the very best ever.


This year, the town of Huntington Beach wanted all cars in place and Main Street closed for the show by 9 AM, so many Factory Five customers registered early at 7 AM. It was cool as the sun came up seeing rows and rows of shining Factory Fives waiting for the day to start. Meanwhile, almost everyone enjoyed a killer breakfast over at The Sugar Shack.



The picture-perfect SoCal day started off with blue skies, head high surf and WIND! A first for this event was some serious wind that had me worried at first light as we were unloading our cars off the FFR big rig. By mid-day the winds had died down and didn’t really affect the event much, especially because it was 80 degrees!



Cars were registered and parked by 9 AM and the town officially closed the first three block of main street from PCH to turn the town into a Factory Five car show! Above: Factory Five’s Tony Zullo cruises the steel body ’33 down Main Street at set-up.


Factory Five’s Sally Bean was in charge of registration and made sure that no one waited more than a few moments to get their show pack and roll into their spot.


The band kicked off their first set around 11 am and played almost the entire day. Between sets, DJ (and customer) Mike Brassfiled kept the show rolling.

Customer Doug Deffebach led the show judges around the 100+ car field to do a great job picking winners.


Not all show registrations were completed cars. Here is a running/driving rolling chassis Mk4 heading into registration!

Car show awards were at 2 pm and the show wrapped up by 4 pm when the pedestrian mail returned to a regular road, with some FFR’s staying for after-show fun and others rumbling off into the distance.



Special guest Cristy Lee was amazing, signing autographs and posing for pictures with customers all day. Cristy also helped unveil the two newest Factory Fives on Main Street at 1 pm. Most attendees were from the west coast and many traveled from Arizona, Nevada, and NorCal. East coast builder Mark Dougherty came in for the show, and while Karen Salvaggio from SoCal, she actually returned from Atlanta to make the show. Customer Mark Stackler came in from New York, and many others (apologies for any omissions).