lol
"Packaging is a little understated. grin"
I encourage you to build something that can be changed fairly easily--
You most likely will be changing things---I have run my new car twice.
We are in the thrash of an axle change and axle mounting change modifying the canopy-- lots of wiring change and rerouting, hood scoop modifications. Once we find out what "Ms. Liberty" likes and dislikes we will then really try to build a nice final version ---with PAINT!!
We rebuilt RATICAL, nearly completely 3 times, before we got a car that could handle the HP and the race course---hopefully it will not take 3 rebuilds this time around!
I say this, because (IMO) if you build a really nicely finished car you are a lot less likely to start cutting and chopping to make changes, you may need to, or try new ideas.
My thoughts are get a GOOD race car---FIRST--- then try to spiff it!
As they say YMMV