On Tue, 22 Nov 1994, W. Ray Gibbons wrote:
[cut, cut here]
> I said, "Well, at least the car wasn't perfect before the accident. Look,
> the rear fender was full of bondo." It was; the crumpled left rear fender
> had about 1/8 inch of your basic pink bondo over very rough-looking
> aluminum. The mechanic said, "That is probably factory work. Sometimes
> the panels don't line up and they bondo them."
[snip, snip there]
Ray, a friend told me some years ago of the time when he had his 1959
Rolls-Royce repainted. The bodyshop uncovered "bondo" that they were sure
must have been there from the factory. It may not be a factor of how well
the panels line up, just how smooth the surface is v. what is desired.
OTOH, with the Land Rover, maybe the company is trying to save a few
Pounds by making do with worn-out panel tooling. But that leads to the
question of "why bother making perfectly straight panels for a vehicle
that begs to be thrashed about off-road?"
Now, the REAL question: was the Defender still driveable? I'd expect
nothing less....
Andrew Mace
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