Carbon FFR Cobras

[NC Cobra]

So I was looking at a photo of a very pretty polished aluminum Kirkham Roadster and got to thinking. If you are going to build a really unique looking composite body Cobra, a gloss carbon finish would be even cooler than polished aluminum. I have heard that FFR built a limited number of carbon bodied Roadsters several years ago. Does anybody know the back story as to how many and why they were discontinued? My guess is that the price point didn’t pencil out given the difficulty of working with the material and getting the fibers aligned for looks vs load paths. Love to hear any stories from the group on the topic.
Cheers,
Jeff

[Jeff Kleiner]

Mark Dougherty and I had a long discussion when examining one about 10 or 12 years ago. He was working for FFR when they were produced and said the exact number of CF bodies made is unknown but he believes it to be fewer than 20. One of those was on the "X" car that Dave made famous by rolling, then winning with at RunN'Gun. He recalled the weight reduction of the main body to be ~40 pounds or so but there is also savings in the doors, trunklid and hood so the full body saves in the neighborhood of 75-80 pounds over the glass bodies of the same vintage . That is an important consideration because those glass bodies were heavier than today's. In the end it seems the carbon fiber bodies were a bit of a science experiment that are a rarity and an interesting piece of Factory Five history. If the one we were looking at is indicative of all they were rough, rough rough!!!

Jeff

[Gordon Levy]

I has one of the carbon bodied cars, ran it at Run and Gun in 98. It was the red one Dick Smith and I ran. It weighed 53lbs with hood, door and trunk. The issue is carbon needs a vacuum bag process to really come out well and the hand layup process the tight radius's just didn't come out well. There was no way to have a car bare carbon or even bare carbon stripes and have it look good.

[R. Button]

I had managed to find a set of carbon fiber doors and trunk lid. The worked well on my Mark I chassis. When I had them painted, the painter had difficulty getting them smooth - he kept finding pin hole in the paint. He finally stripped off the paint and put a very thin coat over the carbon fiber to help fill in the pin holes.
I talked with Roger Stein who had a complete carbon fiber body. He got the body from a FFR customer that did not like the pin holes all through the body. After some discussions with FFR Roger got the body and put it on his chassis.

[Papa]

Where there is a will and deep pockets, there is a way:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=159291&d=1640636402

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=159292&d=1640636402

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=159293&d=1640636402

I think I recall seeing that this body on a donor chassis would set you back $545,000.

[NC Cobra]

Where there is a will and deep pockets, there is a way:

I think I recall seeing that this body on a donor chassis would set you back $545,000.

Hmmmm, I checked with the wife and thats a bit out of budget. It certainly is beautiful however. Did a bit of a search and found an artists rendition of what a Cobra might look like. Not a fan of the slammed look but if not for that I’m sure I could find a space in the garage if I had a spare half mil in the bank.

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[NC Cobra]

Yeah carbon is a…. Well lets just say it’s difficult to work with. I will say it’s much better than Kevlar which has a tendency to get fuzzy when sanding. Proper resin content and vacuum bagging go a long way towards fixing the pin hole issue but its a big project with lots of potential issues on a car like ours due to the many curves. It would most likely be a unicorn type of project but looking at that Porsche does get me thinking….. Now all I need is a winning lottery ticket.

[JohnK]

FFR has already demonstrated with the F9 prototype that current carbon fiber technology has advanced far enough to be viable for an entire body. I'd love to see a MkV roadster body that's computer-designed to be symmetrical side-to-side and address a lot of the other quirkiness of the current bodies, fit the frame without tons of tweaking, and be made entirely out of CF. Given that the roadster is the highest volume car FFR sells, I would think the cost of the molds would be easier to justify than just about any other model.

[mikeinatlanta]

First step for a carbon part clear coated is a mold made to do it and the FFR molds are not. I have a Motus MSTR motorcycle with an all carbon body and the molds are machined aluminum.159325