Troy, if I were you, and was approaching a build while watching the pennies, I would go with the ERA over the Unique, but I would cut back on the "easily upgradable" big ticket items. For instance, the seats are just four bolts each and they pull right out. Get them in vinyl and then upgrade them later on down the line to leather (if you're like me, you would just pull them out at the end of the driving season and ship them back to ERA for an upgrade and then reinstall them when the new driving season starts). There are all sorts of pieces that you're not thinking about that can be done "on the cheap" now and then tweaked up later. Here's the ERA options list and prices for both the 289 and 427 cars:
http://www.erareplicas.com/427/427options.pdf One area that I would really cut back on would be the engine. I would just put any half-decent,
cheap, used SBF and a rebuilt transmission in there for now and then replace them both down the line. That's a
one day upgrade some time in the future. Sooooo, if you were looking to save $1300, and the choice was to put in a used Tremec or to powder coat the chassis, I would choose to go ahead and do the powder coating every time (because doing that later is next to impossible). I would splurge on a nice paint job up front though, because that's easier to do at the beginning (although you can do it later with good results). Wheels/Pin Drives, rears, brakes, gauges, body trim, tops, visors, wings, wipers... all of that stuff you can pick and choose to add at a later date. ERAChas started his car off that way, and systematically upgraded it for two decades until it was one of the finest examples around. You
can do it incrementally.