As Told by Bob Littlefield

Photos by Steve Temple

At Littlefield Customs, I build one car at a time. I like to build high-horsepower, lightweight cars that you can actually drive, so taking on the Factory Five Daytona coupe was an interesting project. (And not an inexpensive one, either, considering all the upgrades.)

The kit started at $22,000, but by the time we were done getting the carbon ceramic brake package to fit the car, we had another $20,000 just in the stoppers. At that point it wasn’t a cheap-’n-cheerful kit car anymore — it was a custom supercar.

I like LS power (instead of the traditional Bow Tie block), so I used a GM LS3 from Mast Motorsports, supercharged with a Whipple blower to make 820 horses and 712 lb/ft of torque. Of course, nobody makes headers for this application, so I had to build my own, fabricate motor mounts and relocate the motor 3 1/2 inches farther forward to get a better balance. The weight of the car is 2,960 pounds, with 51 percent of the weight to the rear and 49 percent to the front. Next we added in Davis Technologies traction control so we can actually get the horsepower to the road. I call it training wheels for a supercar!

Since debuting at the SEMA show, I took the car back into the shop to integrate an iPad mini to run everything. Since the iPad mini runs the ignition system, you can turn it on and off wirelessly, using Bluetooth in your cell phone. And that also includes running the lights, sound system and navigation.

I enjoy building one-of-a-kind supercars. With a little imagination and a lot of money, it’s amazing what you can do with a kit car. There are so many custom features on this car it’s hard to list them all I don't think anybody will ever see another one like it.

The car is scheduled to go to auction at Mecum January 24 5:30 PM, lot number S216. So I guess we will see what it will actually bring it auction. The build cost on the car is $130,000, and my last one-off car I built, a customized ‘69 Camaro, brought $170,000 at Mecum. That’s no guarantee, but I’m positive there’s nothing else out there like this car when it comes to custom coupes.