[Aussie Mike]

Fiberglass has some serious advantages over aluminium for a road car. If you drop a spanner on a fiberglass panel the worst you are going to get is probably a paint chip. Drop one on an aluminium body and you will probably have a dent to go with the paint chip.

Fiberglass bodies in relation to aluminium bodies are imensly strong. They will take a lot of abuse without showing hardly any damage (See if Craig still has the pics of his Cobra that took out a telephone pole). Laurie Bongalas slammed his car backwards into the freeway armco at 100Ks and then had a light pole fall down across it. He patched it up and was going again in no time. He left the bonet as is and it still shows the scars but it's not much of a mark where the pole landed.

People will talk about aluminium "memory" when it comes to dent repairs etc but I still think it's much easier to repair a glass body with the tools and skills in a home workshop. Glass would definitely be my preference for a car that's driven regularly.

If I were to have an aluminium body the only way I'd present it would be in bare aluminium, either pollished or buffed with scotch brite. Once you put some paint on it no one will be able to tell it from a fiberglass one unless they start crawling round under it.

Glass Cobra bodies and general fiberglas tecghnology have come a long eay in recent years. There are some very high tech materials used in some of the kits on the market out there. For example the body on the Robnel is available in a Kevlar composite and is pretty tough. It's well worth doing some research into how each manufacturer lays up their body.

Cheers