Got lemons? Make Lemonade is the old adage. That’s exactly what the crew at Factory Five and the larger Factory Five community has been doing this year of COVID, a.k.a. “The Year without car shows!” FFR charitable work has been remarkable and the results are making a a real difference. Here are a few of the notable builds and efforts of the past year!
London Cobra Show raises $267,000 for Cystic Fibrosis!
Last year we donated in full our very first (Serial #001) 25th Anniversary Mk4 Roadster kit t the Ohio Cobra Club. The club would build the car and raffle it off as the 2020 giveaway car at the annual London Cobra Show. Serial number 001 sold more than 17,000 raffle tickets! The gang at the Ohio Cobra Club could not host the annual cruise event, but were able to draw the winning ticket and forward a whopping $267,000 to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. To date, the Ohio Cobra Club has raised $1.7 Million dollars for the CF Foundation. This year’s 2021 event is tentatively scheduled for June 24th-26th, and will go forward if the pandemic continues to subside.
Manheim Auto Auctions raises $154,000 for Make-A-Wish Foundation!
In the year of COVID, in-person auto auctions have migrated on-line. The boys at Manheim Auto Auctions decided to spend their down-time building a beautiful blue Factory Five Type 65 Coupe and offered it up for auction to benefit The Make-A-Wish Foundation. The car was sold last week at their dealer auction on March 25th, 2021 and sold for a jaw-dropping $154,000! ALL of that money was donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the price is a high water mark for an FFR Coupe.
Austin Hatcher Foundation Builds a Pair of Factory Fives!
Rose Kawasaki heads up the effort to have not one, but TWO Factory Fives built to benefit the Austin Hatcher Foundation working to cure childhood cancer. The two cars are a matching set Mk4 Roadster and a new Gen 3 Type 65 Coupe! The Mk4 was picked up last month and the Coupe was picked up the other day! The cars will be built and displayed at the 2021 SEMA Show before being auctioned with all of the proceeds going to the Austin Hatcher Foundation!
2021 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Build #7 is on!
This year is the 7th year and the 7th car we’ve donated to St. Jude and the Pilots of Fed Ex. Every year a group of Fed Ex pilots gather to build a Factory Five Roadster. Last year (2020), they built a Daytona Coupe that raised $65,000, and the year before they built TWO FFR MK4 roadsters that netted an astounding $240,000 ($120,000 each car!). All the proceeds go to benefit the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Take a tour of St. Jude and meet the children and families they are helping and you’ll be a supporter for life! Check out their St. Jude-FedEx build page.
