[chesterak]

There is a certain satisfaction in building a project from scratch, whatever it is. My lad has built two offroad buggy chassis from a ruck of CDS tube However, he spent hours studying ackerman angles, anti-squat, anti-dive and other fairly important suspension geometry. The poular chassis for cobras are very well designed and look reletively simple - I think this may be deceptive. Build design (ladder, backbone etc) is a personal choice to be balanced with cost. Given that we have the tools and equipment to build from scratch, compared with what my AK cost, I wouldn't bother cleaning up my welding mask. One thing I am looking at though is using USA sourced independent front and rear suspension to graft onto an established chassis.
DB's point is well made if you want to recover any costs....