944 panels

[idwoodvale]

Hi all,

Can anyone give me ideas as to what alternative materials body panels esp. front wings / outer sills are available in? I'm having to consider a fairly comprehensive body restoration on my car and want to get some idea of what to go for. I know that GRP panels are available and that Peter Empson has some fibreglass panels on his. Does anyone have any experience of whether some of these alternatives fit well or who the best sources are?
The guy provisionally looking over the car recons that with some GRP products it can be hard to get a good finish without the ripples often seen in the surface and also that the fit is not always so good.

Thanks
Ian

 

[Peter Empson]

Hi Ian,
There's no real alternatives to steel for the sills, but I wouldn't recommend anything other than factory parts there, they're not expensive and you will save labour as they're an easy fit compared to some of the alternatives.

GRP and carbon are good alternatives to steel for the unstressed panels like wings and bonnet, but again they will probably require more work to get the looking just right. However with someone that knows what they're doing they can be made to look almost as good as steel. Downsides are that they will offer less strength in an impact although some argue they absorb it very well and they can be fairly easily repaired by an expert too. There's no rust to worry about although they can suffer from stress marks if incorrectly fitted or from impacts, and paint can chip off them a little more easily. Resale would probably be affected too.The lightness of them isn't a great benefit on the road, but doesn't hurt. The guy I'm using is very familiar with GRP so he has no concerns working with the stuff, but if your bodyshop isn't completely comfortable then I'd be safe and stick with steel.

I visited my car yesterday and my wings are now in the 3rd coat of primer and the side repeaters have been filled ([]), but on one side there's a curious bump that can be felt about 3 inches in front of where the indicator would be. These are some of the better UK made panels we could find (I think cost was only £150 ish each I think) but they're still going to require work to smooth the line, a trivial point perhaps but if each wing takes a couple of extra hours to get the fit right (and I'm really just guessing here) then it quickly reduces the saving.

So for this reason, given that any proper paintwork is going to be a pretty big investment I really cannot see it's wise to use anything other than original panels unless you're chasing performance. A new set of factory wings will buy you another 20 years+ (probably a lot more if one owner looks after them) and will cost circa £400 each (I think that's the going rate), a relatively small percentage of the overall cost.

If you do decide on going the composite route there are lots of companies to use, personally I'd suggest speaking to Simon at ESS who supplied mine, he sources parts from all the major suppliers and without a huge mark up.