RE: hpi body's sucks major.
You know I never really thought to ask about the durability of HPI bodies. That sux because I just bought a clear HPI DSX-2 body to paint-up this week and run out at the track. My original body is still in one piece I was just tired of running pre-painted shell at the track. My spoiler did break off at its base but it seems to be holding now with a . 040 styrene strip reinforcing the base of the spoiler with a surface coating of Shoe Goo (tried it once without Shoo Goo reinforcement and it didn't last one run!). I don’t know if that's really going to hold up though in competition at the big track. Similar reinforcement at the body post holes are doing a great job keeping those areas intact after the area had taken damage before the reinforcement. There I used .020 Styrene, but that's more of a fully coated medium for the Shoe Goo (the .020 Styrene with a single coat of shoe goo one one side pasting it to the body doesn't hold up…both sides need to be coated).
Anyway I assumed all bodies would wear like that. Guess not. Considering the robustness of HPI chassis I'm surprized they offer weak bodies. Whish I would have know this I would have just tried out some Pro-Line bodies instead of trying to keep my Firestorm looking like a Firestorm.
Well this will be my first paint job so it probably turn out looking pretty lame anyway.