Hi,
I don't want to discourage you from f'glass or from purchasing from Revington. I have used f'glass materials myself on various cars and have purchased from Neil, whom I have high regard for. You can trust that Revington's parts will be of good quality and they will be helpful after the sale, if assistance is needed.
But, I want to make you aware of a few things to consider before you take the plunge:
Fiberglass fenders are often designed for and used on vintage race cars, primarily for weight reduction (also for ease of repair in the event of trading paint with a competitor on the race track). As such, some might be made thinner than, say, a standard f'glass part that's intended for street use would be. This *might* be true of Revington's, since they are specialists heavily involved in and catering to vintage/historic racing. I do know they offer a special TR4 "Surrey" that's lightweight/race only, but I don't know about TR3 fenders. I'd suggest you ask them, to be sure.
F'glass, particularly the thinner, lightweight racing variety, can more easily be damaged. This includes rocks thrown up from the wheel during normal driving, hitting the inside of the fender. Many who use f'glass fenders also use plastic fender liners to help protect them from this sort of damage. Liners are an added cost and installation. On the other hand, f'glass is generally pretty easily repaired.
F'glass is non-original and can significantly devalue the car in the eyes of some potential buyers, if you think you ever might sell the car. No production TRs originally had f'glass panels. I seem to recall there were two or three specially built LeMans TR3s with modified/lenghtened f'glass bodies on longer chassis. And, the LeMans Spits had some f'glass panels, I think. Aluminum was more often used by Triumph to lighten the factory race team cars. I know this is true of the TR4, but am not sure if it was done on TR3. From a perspective of being "correct" for maximum resale value, alu would be my choice for my TR4. Granted, it's *a lot* more expensive! So, I'll probably just stick with steel panels for now.
On the other hand, if you plan to keep the car "forever", and don't personally care about what's installed, f'glass might be a great option. Over time f'glass does dry out, crack and become brittle, but this takes years or even decades. Once dried out, re-coating/soaking with resin is needed. Many 60s and 70s Corvettes need this sort of attention during restoration, to give you some idea of the timeline. They can soak up gallons of gallons of resin, sort of depending upon the environment the car has spent it's life in. F'glass can also sag and warp over many years. For example, hardtop Corvette doors are known to sometimes develop misfit problems after a long lifespan.
My TR4 currently has f'glass rocker panels that were fitted during a rolling restoration in 1979. They are still usable and were a good way to avoid many rust problems. Steel rockers can be fitted better, IMHO, and steel is what I'm going back to in the restoration now in progress. With the f'glass, there were some issues about retaining the weatherstripping door seal (which fits into a narrow, welded-on strip... not possible on f'glass of course), that never really got resolved. The door surround trim was a bugger to fit, too, due to the thicker f'glass panel and rivets holding it in place. I also think welded steel is structurally sounder in this particular application. (Done right and reinforced in some applications, f'glass *can* be stronger than steel, though.)
Properly finished and sprayed, it shouldn't be possible to tell fiberglass panels from adjacent steel. This was true back in '79 when my TR4 got 5 coats of primer & sealer and 20 coats of hand-rubbed lacquer (I'll never do *that* again, but that's another story!).
Ordering parts from England is expensive. Shipping costs alone are steep, so check those out well in advance. Particularly large items and anything that needs to be shipped in a hurry, i.e. air-freight, will set you bakc a lot!
Exchange rates can also have a significant effect.
And, you will owe import duties on top it all, which are reasonable on parts for classic/vintage cars (about 10% last time I checked), as opposed to new car parts (I recall 30%). Be sure to ask the vendor to note on the declaration the parts are for classic/vintage cars, not just "car parts", or risk being charged 3X the duty.
Another UK company,
https://www.honeybournemouldings.co.uk/ offers a wide range of f'glass panels and parts for Triumph, and *might* be where Neil gets some of the parts he offers (I don't know about this). I've had a couple email dialogues with the folks at Honeybourne, but not yet bought anything from them. They have been helpful and responsive to emails.
The same cost of shipping, variable exchange rate and import duty considerations apply to Honeybourne, of course. One way to "beat these", at least partially, is to work with a US distributor of any UK company's parts. It can be less costly, since parts are container shipped less expensively in large batches and are purchased by the distributor at wholesale, i.e. import duties are based upon the lower wholesale price. On the bright side, you won't be required to pay the 17.5% Value Added Tax (VAT) often shown included in the quoted prices on British websites.
It works about equally well to buy from a Canadian distributor of British-made parts, since there is little or no duty from England to Canada, and also little or no duty from Canada to the US. However, there might be higher shipping costs and I've occasionally had things spend weeks in transit, from Canada to the US. Of course, container or any other sort of surface shipping (most affordable) from England can take weeks, too.
Here in the U.S. some distributors of UK-made parts include the big three, of course, along with folks like Ken Gillanders at
www.britishframeandengine.com, and probably
www.bpnorthwest.com. You might ask around, if they can special order parts for you. (Note, Ken's email link on his website home page has been wrong for as long as I can remember... it tries to send email to copper.com, just change to copper.net and it will work.)
There are also some US/Canada based manufacturers of f'glass parts for TRs. You'll have to do some searching.
On the other hand, steel panels, new and used, are pretty widely available for TRs, too. Unless seriously crunched and strecthed and/or mostly rotted away by rust, a good body repairman (uh, person) can do wonders repairing existing steel panels, too. Might be worth checking into.
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