2017 Open House Report

[Mad Dog]

In 1997, we had been in business for two years and we decided to have our very first Open House in the parking lot of our old Kendrick Road facility. Maybe 25 cars showed up. It was a great chance to simply hang with the people who pay our rent and check out cars on a summer afternoon. Over the years, thousands of people have attended out annual Open House event, and this year, the 20th Anniversary Open House event had a wonderful turnout on a beautiful summer’s day.



The Open House event follows a familiar schedule. The event opens up with registration and over 100 Factory Fives thundering in between 8 am and 9 am. We’ve got live music, all the hot dogs you could eat, plant tours, demo cars in the showroom, a killer scratch and dent parts sale, and car show awards for Factory Five cars. This year was no different, but the nice weather after such a long stretch of bad weather made the event especially enjoyable.

Here are some photos, and there are a TON more in the gallery. Click here for those images.


About 100 cars showed up between 8 am and 9 am. This year, there was a triathlon on the local road leading to Factory Five which caused some back-ups.


Our shipping partners at FedEx brought by a Denny Hamlin demo car for people to check out. This was a honest-to-God with a chassis that is one year old and last won at Martinsville.


Jay and Dan manned the parts sale area. This is a great time to pick-up a good deal on scratch and dent parts.



In the showroom, we were displaying three Gen 3 Coupes (two street cars and a race car) along with the 20th Anniversary Mk4 Roadster. The doors to the plant and showroom were wide open all day since the weather was absolutely perfect.

[Mad Dog]

Factory Five Roadsters were the most numerous in attendance. Unlike previous years, we didn’t have very many Hot Rods and we had an abundance of 818s.


For customers to get build ideas, how many places can you go to see Factory Fives lined up like aircrafts waiting to take off.


We had some cool in-process builds show up!


It’s nice to see some well-built 818s like this baby blue rocket above.



Factory Five’s Dave Smith gave plant tours starting in welding and going through molding, chassis assembly, and packaging.





Customers had a chance to try on each different Factory Five model for size.

[Mad Dog]

At noon, car show awards were presented. Car show judges were customers Jim Kalwait, Randy Jones, Christian Rowell. Photographs of all award winners are included in the main image gallery. Click here.

Car Show Award Winners

Best in Show Coupe – Mathew Twarog
Best in Show Roadster – Paul Borror
Best in Show Challenge Car – John George
Best in Show ’33 – “Nutcase” Black ’33
Best in Show 818 – Chris Relyea Roadster from FormaCars
Best in Show Under Construction – Chris Rayay Roadster from FormaCars
Best Chrome – Frank Raia
Most Innovative Improvement – Lewis Chesno
Best Paint – Tom Pudla
Best Engine – Pal Murphy
Best Interior – Ted Dryja
Best in Show all Classes – Paul Borror
Long Distance Award – Jim Ergler with over 50,000 miles
Robert Fedderson Memorial Award – Paul Borror


Chris Rayay Roadster from FormaCars with Factory Five’s Sally Bean earned the Best Under Construction award.


Paul Borror earned Best in Show Roadster, Best in Show Overall AND the Robert Fedderson Memorial Award!



Perfect day, good music, good company, and 20 years of gratitude made the 20th anniversary Factory Five Open House a huge success! We already placed our order for next year’s event.

Factory Five Racing

[Doug @ Forma]

It was a great day and it was great talking to so many FFR enthusiasts.

(BTW - Chris' last name is Relyea )

[Mad Dog]

Thanks Doug! His name has been corrected.

[KDubU]

It was a great day indeed and thanks for the FF crew for putting it on. I know there is a lot to do to make this happen and it's greatly appreciated.

[mrprgrmr]

Nice write-up. Thanks!

[Garry Bopp]

Thanks, Mad Dog! Great pictures and write-up. Perfect weather and great cars to drool over. Of course, the best ones were the 3 Gen3 coupes in the showroom ... I am somewhat biased.

Garry