As Factory Five President said in the video above, his company is well known for it’s Cobra kit cars, known as the Mk4. However, the stable of cars that Factory Five Racing offers includes a classic Ford street rod, an all electric kit car, a Corvette powered exotic, and the Type 65 Coupe – better known to many for that familiar shape that is the 1965 race-winning Daytona Coupe.

Smith was on a mission to accomplish two things with the coupe: make the chassis stronger, and give it more cabin room. For that task, he challenged Jim Schenck with the goal to go faster, be stronger, and make the car a bit more friendly to taller customers.

Smith told us, “If you compare the body and the chassis of this new car to the older model, there isn’t anything that was carried over, it’s 100% new.” This meant ditching the round tube chassis and creating a new, square tube chassis that increase strength and torsional rigidity.

According to Factory Five the new chassis is over seven times stronger than the older design. And that cabin room? They met that challenge as well with the new chassis by dropping the seat a little and making the car more friendly to taller customers.

Also making its way into the new chassis is the modern Mustang components, replacing the old Thunderbird components, making the car a much better handling car with the proven suspension components of the 2015 Mustang.

Now that the chassis and interior have met the challenge, the body is also much sleeker with its new design, offering better looks and less drag. You can find out more about the all-new Daytona Coupe on the Factory Five Racing website, and it will definitely cost you far less than one of those six original Shelby Daytona coupes.