After more than a year of development, we are excited to announce that the first customer Gen 3 Type 65 Coupe has shipped! Factory Five customer Henry Renaud has earned a reputation from the cars he has built. Search Factory Five archives and you’ll know that Henry is not only a master builder, but an Air Force Officer who has completed multiple deployments.  Henry was selected as one of five “beta” customers.  Henry’s feedback will be immediately incorporated into production cars scheduled in 2017.

The Gen 3 Type 65 Coupe alpha car (above) was displayed at the 2016 SEMA Show. That car was built to specifications, but was constructed in the R&D shop. Henry’s car is chassis #002 (we have chassis #001 here and are building that car simultaneously alongside beta cars), and was built from all-production tooling, parts, and was packaged by production.

Factory Five Ops Manager Nate Johnson (center) with Tech leader Tony Zullo (right) and Jim Schenck, Director of R&D (left) and Chassis Assembly Specialist Aaron Martins (far left).

Henry (light blue t-shirt) with the Factory Five crew as #002 is being assembled.

Henry picked-up his car with an 18′ aluminum Factory Five trailer! Jesper and Matt (above) helped with the load.

Above & Below: Factory Five Ops Manager Nate Johnson drives the fork truck and lifts #002 onto Henry’s trailer.

Matt and Ricky deliver the rest of the packaged parts.

This is an exciting day as it marks the first day of production of our all-new Gen 3 Type 65 Coupe design.  The coming months will see quite a bit of activity, and 2017 will be an exciting year to watch the fastest ever Factory Five Coupes hit the track and make the show circuits.

A note about beta cars: In product development, an “alpha” product (in this case a car kit) is typically a hand-made prototype that is a proof of concept. Our first Gen 3 Coupe was a very advanced “alpha” car with many production parts, but still considered an “alpha.” “Beta” products at Factory Five are made from production tooling by production personnel to specification. The purpose is to QC and suggest changes by people not associated with the design and production process. Customer-built “beta” cars are virtually identical to production cars, but serve a very important purpose in making sure that the cars are engineered to be built and built by qualified, but independent eyes. “Beta” cars receive production serial numbers.