The body shell for the X5 is designed by Josh Cyrul of CEFX and follows the Xfactory philosophy of function first. The shell will probably never win any awards for out right beauty. I confess I did not like it when I first saw it but working with the shell and painting it I have grown to like the design.

The shell has a very large hump for motor cooling, you can even run a heat sink on the motor under the shell.

The drivers cockpit area is in the middle of the shell with the rear swooping up to add downforce. The team claim the shell adds a lot to the aerodynamics of the car.

The shell comes with protective covering on the outside surface for overspray protection and window masks. The windows are what lets this shell down for me, the existing window lines just dont fit the rest of the shell, they look almost like an after thought. I ditched the window masks right away and spent a while trying to improve them using a digital camera, adobe illustrator and a plotter cutter. I went with something more traditional which follows the roof line much better and just seems to compliment the shell more to my liking.

I had to do a "night before racing" quick paint job, so went with blue for the main colour as I was used to spraying it after doing shells for a friend. I faded to pearl white at the front and went with fluorescent orange down the sides and around the windows. I really like the finished paint scheme, and my first impressions of the shell have totally changed, I like it.

An enormous wing is part of the Body Shell package, I left half the vertical on the rear of the wing for added downforce.

I finished off the paint with my own hastily designed and printed XFactory and X5 Stickers, like I do on all my cars. XFactory provide plotter cut stickers in black and in white, which while not overly exciting are bold and stand out nicely.

The shell is attached with 1 clip on the front shock tower. The rear sides of the shell are secured with velcro to the chassis. The front clip really secures the shell whilst the velcro just holds it in place. Access to switches and transponders is quite simple and quick because you can just pivot the rear of the shell up off the velcro with the front clip still in place.

Speaking of transponders, I made an 'L' shaped peice of lexan left over from the wing into a transponder mount. The lexan is mounted with double sided tape to the chassis and sits just behind the cells on the left hand side. I much prefer this to making a hole in the shell or wing.