While in the final stages of waiting for my kit to be complete I thought I would start my build thread to occupy my time. My name is Kurt Hoffman and I reside with my wife Michelle in Wauseon, Ohio. I am a mechanical engineer by trade. My desire to become a mechanical engineer started at a very early age. I loved all kinds of machines. Growing up out in the “country” near farms (my father was not a farmer, he was a carpenter, but nearly every relative of mine was a farmer) I was surrounded by large machines. My grandfather was an implement mechanic so he worked on these machines. He would often bring tractors home to his shop for my brother and I to work on with him. Between this, converting old lawn mowers into go-karts in my grandfather’s shop, and all the Lego blocks and countless other such toys I tinkered with as a kid becoming a mechanical engineer was a natural progression.
I work as the Director of Engineering at a local machine tool builder. This means that day to day I am still “playing” with large machines and I am designing things that other people put together. I thoroughly enjoy my job but sometimes I just want to use my hands to build something myself. This and the desire to get off of two wheels (I had been riding and restoring Harley’s for 15 years) prompted me to purchase my first mid-life crisis seven years ago. I have always loved cars (working on them, just driving them, showing them off, etc.) and had many plastic models as a kid that I had assembled and “customized”. Of all these, the Chevy Camaro was my favorite. When I was 12, the first car I ever drove was my cousin’s 74 Camaro. That sealed the deal for me right there. My plan since childhood was to purchase a 68 Camaro, same age as me being born in November of 1968. As a kid, it never occurred to me that in November of 1968 they were building 1969 Camaros. I searched and searched around and found a 69 Camaro SS that according to the serial number was built the second week of November in 1968. It was only about a week older than me. The car was drivable but needed the mechanicals gone thru from end to end. Luckily the body had been redone in 2000 so I did not have to do any rust repair or paint (this is not my favorite thing to do having done some growing up with the rust buckets of the 70s). I spent the next winter and next few years fixing and customizing things while driving the car and taking it to car shows where it has won several awards. My daughter drove it to prom and homecoming while in high school and was the envy of all the car guys there. She also loves the Camaro and often claims it as her own. That’s not happening while I’m still around, just means I can probably never sell the Camaro. She is off to college now studying electrical engineering.
When work on the Camaro wound down I needed something else to fill my 24 x 36 shop so I found a 66 GTO convertible that needed everything (the motor was in boxes in the trunk and there was rust on nearly every panel of the car). Mid- life crisis number two. This was a 25th wedding anniversary present for my wife. She had always liked the GTO and El Camino, they were her dream cars. I spent the next four years restoring the GTO and finished it this past August. We took it to a few car shows before the season ended and it has already won a couple of awards and gets a lot of attention everywhere we go with it. We like taking it out for a spin to go out to dinner and have had people follow us into parking lots to stop and talk about the car, take pictures, etc. We plan to continue to take it to shows, use it for parades, etc. This spring I need to re-teach the wife to drive a stick first (it is a real muscle car with a four speed).
During the grind of doing all the bodywork, rust repair, and paint on the GTO I felt the need/desire to do something different. About that time, I saw a few episodes of Engine Power where they visited Factory Five. I started researching Factory Five and liked the GTM and the new 35 pickup. I researched both of these builds and was a little concerned about the amount of bodywork the Factory Five kits seem to require. The 35 pickup and 33 coupe appeared to be an easier, more straightforward build but there is nothing “exotic” about those two cars. Bodywork is the part of the GTO resto that made it drag on so long and I was hoping to get away from that on my next project. In researching Factory Five I came across Bill Phillips book on his Factory Five 33 Coupe build. After reading that I found his SL-C build journal. The SL-C blew my mind. I quickly fell in love with everything about the SL-C. Exotic, racey, way nicer than the GTM, but with a price tag to go with that. I worked up a build budget for the SL-C, GTM, 33 Coupe, and 35 Pickup, weighed the pros and cons of each, went on a tour of RCR with the wife on 11/26/18, and decided the SL-C was the way to go!
I work as the Director of Engineering at a local machine tool builder. This means that day to day I am still “playing” with large machines and I am designing things that other people put together. I thoroughly enjoy my job but sometimes I just want to use my hands to build something myself. This and the desire to get off of two wheels (I had been riding and restoring Harley’s for 15 years) prompted me to purchase my first mid-life crisis seven years ago. I have always loved cars (working on them, just driving them, showing them off, etc.) and had many plastic models as a kid that I had assembled and “customized”. Of all these, the Chevy Camaro was my favorite. When I was 12, the first car I ever drove was my cousin’s 74 Camaro. That sealed the deal for me right there. My plan since childhood was to purchase a 68 Camaro, same age as me being born in November of 1968. As a kid, it never occurred to me that in November of 1968 they were building 1969 Camaros. I searched and searched around and found a 69 Camaro SS that according to the serial number was built the second week of November in 1968. It was only about a week older than me. The car was drivable but needed the mechanicals gone thru from end to end. Luckily the body had been redone in 2000 so I did not have to do any rust repair or paint (this is not my favorite thing to do having done some growing up with the rust buckets of the 70s). I spent the next winter and next few years fixing and customizing things while driving the car and taking it to car shows where it has won several awards. My daughter drove it to prom and homecoming while in high school and was the envy of all the car guys there. She also loves the Camaro and often claims it as her own. That’s not happening while I’m still around, just means I can probably never sell the Camaro. She is off to college now studying electrical engineering.
When work on the Camaro wound down I needed something else to fill my 24 x 36 shop so I found a 66 GTO convertible that needed everything (the motor was in boxes in the trunk and there was rust on nearly every panel of the car). Mid- life crisis number two. This was a 25th wedding anniversary present for my wife. She had always liked the GTO and El Camino, they were her dream cars. I spent the next four years restoring the GTO and finished it this past August. We took it to a few car shows before the season ended and it has already won a couple of awards and gets a lot of attention everywhere we go with it. We like taking it out for a spin to go out to dinner and have had people follow us into parking lots to stop and talk about the car, take pictures, etc. We plan to continue to take it to shows, use it for parades, etc. This spring I need to re-teach the wife to drive a stick first (it is a real muscle car with a four speed).
During the grind of doing all the bodywork, rust repair, and paint on the GTO I felt the need/desire to do something different. About that time, I saw a few episodes of Engine Power where they visited Factory Five. I started researching Factory Five and liked the GTM and the new 35 pickup. I researched both of these builds and was a little concerned about the amount of bodywork the Factory Five kits seem to require. The 35 pickup and 33 coupe appeared to be an easier, more straightforward build but there is nothing “exotic” about those two cars. Bodywork is the part of the GTO resto that made it drag on so long and I was hoping to get away from that on my next project. In researching Factory Five I came across Bill Phillips book on his Factory Five 33 Coupe build. After reading that I found his SL-C build journal. The SL-C blew my mind. I quickly fell in love with everything about the SL-C. Exotic, racey, way nicer than the GTM, but with a price tag to go with that. I worked up a build budget for the SL-C, GTM, 33 Coupe, and 35 Pickup, weighed the pros and cons of each, went on a tour of RCR with the wife on 11/26/18, and decided the SL-C was the way to go!