While there are plenty of threads about the technical side of rally racing I wasn't able to find anything that would describe or explain how the body work of a rally car is fixed after it gets damaged. While there are plenty of videos on the internet showing how the mechanics hit bent body panels into their approximate shape in between stages there aren't any videos showing how a beat up car is restored to it's original shine after a serious body damage. We know a team of technicians is able to fix anything as long as the cage hasn't been bent. We see rally cars after rollovers reenter the race and then being restored to a show like condition before the next rally. Does anyone have any info, articles, videos about how a WRC or lower class rally car's body is fixed between rallies? I'm more interested in serious damage that requires body panel work/replacement. I wonder if they just hammer them out to as straight as possible and then bondo the panels (which would add more weight to a vehicle and probably isn't how it's done) or do they take the bent panels completely off straighten out the frame of the vehicle and weld new panels on? I'm most interested in panels that can't be easily replaced like the rear quarter panel.
Thanks for responses. I'm sorry if I didn't post in the right section or missed a thread about this topic. The search yielded no results.
