Bio:
Mark Smith invited his brother Dave out to Boston to start Factory Five Racing in 1995. The company was based on Mark's three year cobra project that he started in his sister's garage in Framingham, MA circa 1992. A marketing MBA and R&D new products chemist at fortune 500 Avery Dennison Inc.in the late 80's and early 90's, Mark followed his lifelong passion of building cars and made the le
ap from ink patents to designing cars full time in 1994. That first one donor kit car, a 60's Shelby 427 cobra replica based on the power train from the fuel injected 5.0 liter mustang, launched Factory Five Racing which became the largest component car company in the world in a short 5 years. After growing FFR from 0 to $12 million in sales, Mark left the CEO role at FFR in 2002 to his brother Dave and R&D duties in the supremely qualified hands of Jesper and Jim. Mark's last accomplishment at FFR was managing the massive legal battle with Carroll Shelby and Ford over the Cobra trademark. This win was the end of his day to day involvement at Factory Five. His signature "aluminum under glass" cobra and daytona coupe race car designs have sold over 10,000 units worldwide and remain to this day the most popular kit cars of all time. By 2012 younger brother Dave was finally able to secure financing to buy Factory Five from Mark. He moved to a 10,000 sq foot facility next door in Wareham, Ma limited post sale by a 5 year non compete. During this time he continued to engineer and build wild machines ranging from a 1500hp 50' bio-diesel speedboat, a 140hp v-twin drag bike, a 50 mpg diesel mid-engined sports car, and the now wildly popular mini pick-up kit. Today's Smyth Performance took flight in 2014 with the success of the car to truck conversion kits and is one of the fastest growing car companies in the country. The Local Motors connection: In 2007, Mark teamed up with a newly minted Harvard MBA and veteran Marine Jay Rogers and founded Local Motors. In a small facility next to the main FFR factory, LM became the world leader in community car and product design and prototyping, while serving as a hub of co-creation in the vehicle and appliance world. From GE to Airbus, the LM team has been committed to changing the way we design new products. LM had reached a valuation in excess of $100 million as of 2017.
2017 was also the end of Mark's 5 year non-compete with FFR. Even though he had sold most of his interest in LM by 2014, he remained on the board of directors until Feb 2017. Join Mark and his team as they design and ship amazing kits that turn cars into trucks. VW, Audi, Dodge, Subarus and Jeeps are leading the way as we tell our DIY car based truck story worldwide from our New England factory in scenic Tiverton, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
