210 MPH Factory Five Coupe!

Factory Five Tears Up European Circuit
 
 

Last year a Factory Five Type 65 Coupe owned by FFR builder SoFast Racing set a new land speed record at Bonneville (click here if you missed the story) clocking an average 213 MPH on the salt!  Now we get news from Europe that an FFR Coupe is crushing the competition and tripping speeds north of 200 MPH!

Factory Five customer Robert Schweiker owns a Factory Five Challenge Car and the red Type 65 Coupe shown above.  The cars have been road racing in European circuits for the last few years and the guys report that recently while running at Monza the car (Coupe) has run top speeds around 210 MPH!  Robert and his wife are from Austria.

Some interesting background:
Robert originally began racing a Factory Five Challenge Car and after flirting with speeds close to 170 MPH, the aerodynamics of the Roadster became problematic.  Just like in the 60's, Robert looked to the Coupe for better aerodynamics at the faster road racing courses. 

 

Robert Schweiker's red Type 65 Coupe (right) joins SoFast's blue Bonneville bullet in the 200 MPH club.
 

The Type 65 Coupe was built by the crew at Whitby Automotive.  Jeff Collins at Whitby recalled the day that Robert, his wife, and friends from Austria visited.  While not everyone was fluent in English or German, Jeff reported that when they saw the cars they were all speaking the same language. 

The car has an interesting story.  It started out life with FFR customer Peter Walton who sold the red painted body to Factory Five's own Mark Dougherty.  After leaving Factory Five, Mark sold his Coupe parts and painted body to Jeff at Whitby, who completed the car and sold it to Mr. Schweiker!

Jeff and the boys at Whitby Automotive have built a number of very impressive Factory Five cars, mostly street cars, but this Coupe is probably the fastest to have left their shop.

Robert Schweiker and his lightening fast Coupe are just one of a growing army of Factory Fives being built, driven, and raced outside of the United States.  In a world where U.S. manufacturing has been in decline, we are very proud of the work we're doing and the U.S. made parts we're shipping all over the world.  Huge thanks to the professionals at Whitby and congratulations to Robert Schweiker, driver, and race team.