Gents,
Just the other day we fixed a rather severe whack in a customer's car. Someone backed into him and smashed his headlight in about 3 inches. If the car would have been made out of fiberglass, there is NO DOUBT the entire fender would have been shattered.
Shattered glass is almost impossible to repair without grafting in a new piece. As is was, the damage was COMPLETELY repaired in 2 hours. The only problem with the repair was the side we fixed looked better than the side we didn't!
Now, the body was bare aluminum so the repair was complete--no bondo. Now, as no one drives "Bare Naked" fiberglass cars around, fiberglass would of necessity HAVE to be painted to completely hide the repair--an additional cost of many thousands of dollars. Bare aluminum, well like I said, the repaired side looked better than the side which wasn't hit. I guess I tried too hard to make it look good.
As for backing into guard rails...
I think we have all seen the myrid pictures of fiberglass cars which have been posted on this site--shattered in a million pieces with lots of body parts missing and scattered all over the road. I'll take repairing an alumium body which has been backed into a guard rail ANY DAY over a fiberglass car which has been subjected to the same accident.
As Ron said, just pop the interior panels and smack the dent back out. Granted we have a lot of experience with aluminum. I am happy to say, I am not nearly so experienced with the Bondo Repair...
"Don't touch my car, sit on my car, etc..."
I have pictures of women laying down (is that the correct verb) on the fenders of our cars. No dents, no bum prints, no finger prints, etc.
Original cars were extremely fragile. Ours are not and are quite tough and resistant to denting. We use a thicker aluminum sheet and a much stronger alloy. The original cars were pure aluminum and had the strength of a wet noodle--ours are remarkably tough.
Now, I have seen some of our car bodies which have been severely abused and got dented. I am positive the same treatement would have broken most fiberglass and got the offending mechanic dropped head first into a bucket of 90 weight gear lube by the owner if he ever saw the car abused that way.
I have sat on the fenders of our cars many times. Now, I do not sit on the cowl or cram my knees into the doors or the sides of the car. But, how many of you handle your nice china as if it were tupperware. (No pun intended here). Let's face it, you should treat anything with this much value with respect, regardless of what it is made of.
The only time the body is EVER pulled off of an aluminum bodied car, (I'm speaking of our cars and original cars here), is when the car is totaled and the body needs to be replaced. No one in their right mind would take the body off for any other reason. There are very few accidents which require the removal of the body. Any such comparable accident would certainly require a call to your replica maker's fiberglass shop for a new body.
David
