"It's designed to deliver periodic rewards so that you don't get discouraged." I backtrack, swap the spacers, and continue. "We don't structure the build for speed," R&D director Jim Schenck says. Have you ever been deep into a piece of Ikea furniture and realized that you bungled something 15 steps back? That's where I'm at. "They build their cars to a standard that we wouldn't even go for ourselves." I'm not sure if that'll be the case for me. "People are invested in what they're building," he says. "Early on," he says, "a consultant said that one of our biggest issues is that our name is on the final product, but we don't control the quality." But that hasn't created any problems. When founder Dave Smith walks in, I ask whether my handiwork is besmirching the company's good name. If I'd slowed down and read one step further in the assembly manual, I would've known better. I bolt the lower control arm onto the chassis only to discover that I've used the wrong spacers. Today, our goal is to get this car rolling, with brakes, suspension, and tires. Three employees help me gingerly lift the body off its tube-frame chassis. Can a half-competent wrench jockey like me really build a whole car? I'm at Factory Five's Massachusetts headquarters to find out.īefore me is a red fiberglass body and dozens of boxes that, I'm told, contain the raw ingredients of a car. "They build their cars to a standard that we wouldn't even go for ourselves."Įven so, the prospect is daunting.
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