Dilemmas ?

[Enoch]

There is no reason whatsoever why home made ally panels should be "substandard". If you have managed to do everything else on the build there is no reason whatsoever why you can't do the panels too. The nosecone will be by far the hardest but the rest are easy.
To succeed in anything the first step is to convince yourself that you can do something. Get over that hurdle and you can acheive anything you want to. In the original book there is a photo of a car that had been panelled entirely from ally, it looked stunning. You don't have to get it that good cos you can always fill it and spray it to make life easier.
You are spot on with the build cost bit though, it's astonishing how much you can spend on the small bits too - nuts, washers, rivets, sealant, tools etc. As soon as you have to buy anything that is not a donor part the costs escalate very quickly.
Ron's original build was based on an Escort that cost him about 20 quid, he used just about everything he could, the other bits were from a scrappy or other super cheap source. As everyone now wants alloy wheels, smart seats, cool instruments etc the costs have inevitably risen, the price of donor parts does not help either.
I think this is also the reason why nearly all the people that have tried to make a business out of making and selling roadster parts have gone down the tubes. People want to build the cars for two parts the square root of bugger all and won't pay a price that allows the companies to make a decent profit.
After all the expectation was set - albeit quite a few years back - that you could build a car for £250.
nuff sed.