Factory Five 818 EV

"It's the most fun car I've ever driven!" Michael Bream's enthusiasm about a particular Factory Five 818 came through the phone loud and clear, despite the several thousand miles separating us. It's a pretty big statement too, considering the co-founder of EV West – an electric conversion shop located in San Marcos, CA – has a battery-operated BMW M3 race car that puts out 420 horsepower and a very scary 850 pound-feet of torque. Naturally, we hoped there was video taken of the newly built kit car in action to back up the gushing. There was.

"It's the most fun car I've ever driven!" – Michael Bream
Now, there was a time when America was littered with kit car companies offering the DIY crowd the opportunity to drive 1952 MG TD and Ford GT40 replicas built on the bones of VW Beetles. That era has mostly passed and the somewhat meager component car industry, as it prefers to be called, is now dominated by one firm: Factory Five Racing.

This outfit has come to the fore by offering not only a select group of standard classics, but also a couple designs of its own. The most recent in that latter category is the performance-oriented 818, and it's turning out to be a blank canvas upon which electric vehicle enthusiasts can work their black arts. Of the several builds that we know of in the works, the one Bream was boasting of is the only example that has its wheels turning. And by turning, we mean sliding around asphalt, plastering broad smiles across the faces of the select few that have driven her