Tommy Fulbright has been building cars professionally for 20 years now, and was fortunate enough to be involved in multiple types of racing from NASCAR, SCCA, NHRA, and Ultra4. He says he’s been a Factory Five fan for decades and always wanted to build a Coupe. 

Tommy had “built a custom truck for a customer and he wanted to do another project…I suggested that we build one of the Type 65s and run it in the Big Bend Open Road race. Well, not only did he like the idea, but he liked it so much we bought 2 Coupes —a street version and the R-Car. The concept for the R-car was to build a modern version of the Coupe.

Aside from the body components and chassis hard parts, we upgraded just about everything. I have well beyond 1700 hours into the build! The concept was to build a turn key race car that is also street legal and competitive with todays GT2/GT3 race cars, and yet come in at a price point below what they would pay for said cars.”

Owner Wade Meeker says about their first trip to COTA that it was, “a break in for us on a real track with a Pro driver. Watching Zac Anderson drive our car around COTA was a true joy and something I will never forget. Zac would line up in the back of the pack and sometimes last, but he would lap everyone each session. Our best time was 2:26.88 and I believe top speed was 147mph. Zac was a pleasure to have in our car. He told Tommy everything the car was and wasn’t doing. Tommy and Zac were completely in sync and we had a fantastic day. When we came back from COTA; we contacted our tuner, Dave Deramus of D-Bomb Tuning. Dave tuned us to 8200 RPM and 178mph.

A little more about the car. You may have noticed the number, 710. It is the date that my wife and I were married. The point of the build was a proof of concept. As Tommy said, we originally aimed for the Big Bend Open Road Race, but Covid and time got in the way. Honestly, COTA style racing is much more fun and challenging.

This car serves as proof that Fulbright Motorsports can build a competition vehicle that is still street legal, compete, and beat Porsche’s, Lambo’s and other cars with all the Nanny controls. Why spend $300k+ when you can have this car for less, have a lot more fun, and look cool doing it? Tommy deserves all the credit as he built it, and knows it end to end.”

In regards to the parts list used, Tommy said, “I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but this is most of it. I made a handful of changes to the chassis, like dropping the floor 1.5″ to drop the center of gravity, but mainly to give me a bit more headroom with the helmet on.”

(Photos by Rasy Ran)