FABCAR was started in 1977  by Dave Klym in Costa Mesa California after running an Indy car for Fred Carrillo (Carrillo Connecting Rods). Dave worked for Dan Gurney’s All American Racers before running Fred’s car. This will be our 35th year in business.

FABCAR’s first major project was building eleven Wheeler Super V cars, designed by Gary Wheeler.Tom Spalding had us build two Shakee Can-Am cars that were designed by Roman Slobodydynskij. Roman was the designer of the very successful Dan Gurney Eagle Indy cars. Tom was the first person to attempt to put a video camera in a racecar.

In 1979,FABCAR was contracted by Lindsay Hopkins From Atlanta to build three Lightning Indy cars. These cars were some of the first ground effect Indy cars. These cars were designed by David Bruns. David later started Swift Cars.Janet Guthre attempted to qualify for Indy in 1980  The cars had aluminum monocoques and very unique pushrod/pull rod suspension.

During our time in California we were involved in some unique projects. One was building components for a company that built full scale running replicas of the two steam engines that met at Promontory Point in Utah. These trains were built for the Department of The Interior and now run daily in the Golden Spike National Park.

In a trade for flying lessons , Dave  designed a Control stick system for an antique airplane called the Swift that had control wheels. We sold quite a few of these systems. Daves instructor used one of these airplanes in air shows. Dave’s T-34

Dave moved the company to Atlanta Georgia in 1980.    While in Atlanta ,FABCAR concentrated on sports cars and became involved with the Porsche factory . We extensively modified the suspension of a 924 for Paul Miller Racing, which made the car very competitive. This came to the attention of Al Holbert the director of Porsche Motorsports. He asked FABCAR to design and build the tube frame 944R Trans Am cars. We made seven of these cars and one IMSA GT1 car.

FABCAR built several Pro Stock dragster frames for Alan Johnson Racing. We also designed and fabricated the first Monocoque rear end housing for dragsters. These are quite common today.

In 1984 Dave designed and built a car for Bob Akin racing called the 935-84 This is the Coca Cola 935 that is seen in a lot of photos, At the time it was the fastest 935 ever. 

FABCAR later built the JLP-4 for John Paul Racing. This car was designed by Lee Dykstra and was a very radical design. Very few Porsche parts were used in this car. This car won just about every race it entered. 

 FABCAR fabricated two four rotor Mazda GT1 cars for the Mazda factory. Lee Dykstra designed these cars. Blindingly fast!! Mazda also had us build two GT1 show cars.

When the 962 came out, FABCAR started to repair crashed monocoques for just about all of the teams racing these cars. Dave actually flew to Germany to repair two monocoques for Joest Racing. FABCAR scratch built several monocoques for some teams including Al Holbert and Rob Dyson and Hotchkiss Racing. This got the attention of the Porsche Factory. They contracted with FABCAR to build all of their Group-C monocoques. FABCAR also did all of the factory monocoque repairs worldwide. FABCAR also made a lot of suspension components for the 962 including some special steel uprights that the factory ran at Lemans. Porsche had us build a 956 monocoque for their museum.

Joest Racing in Germany had FABCAR put a normally aspirated Falconer V-12 in a 962 in 1991. It used a Hewland gearbox.  The car was very fast and really sounded good. It was never raced in competition.

FABCAR designed and built two Porsche powered Camel Light cars and one Chevy powered GTP car..The first Camel Light car won it’s first race at Road Atlanta with EFR driving . It went on to win other races in the IMSA series. It is currently racing in vintage and Porsche club races.

FABCAR made several tube frame 911’s that ran IMSA, SCCA and Porsche Club racing. Alex Job won the Sebring 12 hour with one of these cars. FABCAR also modified many stock 911’s used in Porsche club racing.

Over the years, FABCAR has built many chassis and chassis components for race teams here and abroad. 

FABCAR designed 944 lower front control arms are still being sold The stock arms of forged aluminum are prone to breakage. Our arms are fabricated from 4130 steel. We sell these through OG Racing Parts. We have sold hundreds of these parts. 

FABCAR designed dual brake system for most 911’s and racing type shift lever assemblies for most 911’s will be sold through OG Racing.

In the mid 1990’s Dave approached IMSA with the idea of building a tube frame mid-engine 911 GT car. They insisted that he maintain the stock 911 wheelbase, front and rear overhangs and stock roofline. He  was also limited to a 3.4 litre engine. Stock 911’s were running 3.8 litre engines at the time. FABCAR hired Lee Dykstra to design the car based on the IMSA requirements. Lee started with a clean sheet of paper. The only Porsche parts used were the engine and taillights. Except for typical buy-out components, FABCAR made everything for the car in-house.

FABCAR built two of these cars. Chassis number one was built for Marvin Epps, a Porsche Club racer from southern California. Marvin and John Paul Jr. did the initial testing here in Indiana. The cars first race was the 24-hour in Daytona. A lot of people drove the car during testing including John Paul Jr, Paul Newman and Hurley Haywood. Their feedback was very positive. We had a crank trigger issue during the race that put us out. Marvin took the car to California and ran some club races with it. He later returned the car to us to have the chassis stretched to fit Boxter bodywork. The car is now owned by Loren Beggs from 911 Design.

Chassis number two was built for Tom Hessert from New Jersey and was campaigned by Alex Job racing. This car won a 6 hour race at Watkins Glen and is currently being raced in Porsche Club events.

FABCAR has only built two cars that could run on the street. The first was a mid engine 911 with a single turbo. This car started out as a stock 911. We replaced the chassis from the B pillar back with a tube sub frame. The turbo and waste gate were mounted behind the passenger seat. The owner of the car had designed a push button shifting system that used a computer and air pressure that turned any H pattern shifter into a sequential shifter. This car also had FABCAR designed and fabricated push rod suspension similar to our mid engine race cars. The McPherson strut front suspension was replaced with unequal length wishbones. The rear was also double wishbone.

The other streetcar started out as a very nasty rusted out 1966 twenty one-window VW bus. We started by removing the bottom nine inches of the bus, which included the floor and suspension. We replaced it with a steel tube frame that would accommodate Porsche 996 suspension. We used the last air cooled Vario-Ram engine and a Tiptronic transmission. The car had a complete roll cage, a 20-gallon fuel tank and a fold down rear seat that turned into a double layer bed. The project took 2 ½ years and cost a ton of money. The bus now has over 40,000 miles and is a daily driver. It has run 135 MPH. It has been featured in magazines and on line.

Dick Diasio the owner of Putnam Park racetrack in Indiana had FABCAR design a small two-seat sports car to use on track days. This is a tube frame car that used a Yamaha motorcycle engine that looked like a miniature 962 Porsche. The car was designated the D962. FABCAR built 30 of these cars and later designed a Mazda powered version of the car.

In 2001,Dave was approached by Grand Am to design the first Daytona Prototype. He was given a rough guideline and came up with a concept that was presented to Jim France at NASCAR. Mr France accepted the concept and ordered the first car. The rules were written as FABCAR was building the car. Officials from Grand Am would fly up to watch progress and measure, poke and prod. New safety concerns altered the final looks of the car.

FABCAR ended up building 8 cars. The first year the FABCAR Daytona prototype  won 5 races with Porsche powered cars that were campaigned by Brumos Racing with David Donohue, Darren Law, Hurley Haywood and J.C. France driving. FABCAR won the manufacturers championship that year.     

FABCAR has a complete Fabrication and machine shop along with CAD capabilities. We continue to make new and replacement parts for all forms of racing.