Paul, you're now officially 'on the road' so you can justifiably start an 'on the road' thread.
Get used to everyone commenting on your car, young and old alike, it's just part of the Sammio ownership experience. I've had quite a few young trendies tell me that my car is sick - I initially ran immediate preventative maintenance diagnostic checks but found that all systems were running within acceptable design parameters - so my best guess is that they meant that they liked it.
As for painting it, I painted mine before the mot and then got a few settling cracks and starbursts in the fibreglass surface once I'd got a couple of thousand miles on the clock. I've recently repaired those and touched up the paint but ideally I'll be stripping and respraying the car within the next six months or so as I feel the partial repaint lets the car down a bit at the mo.
I'm happy with the way I did mine, after all, it's been on the road for three years and almost ten thousand miles and only now needs a repaint, but my advice would be to use your car as much and as quickly as possible - pay us a visit out in the Far East (Norfolk), drive it to work, drive it to the shops, drive it in the rain and drive it for the sheer hell of it, and occasionally check for stress cracks - then, after a couple of months, sort any issues that arise and give it a coat of paint. Oh, and do it yourself, you'll save an awful lot of money and will gain that final surge of self satisfaction that it really is all your own work. Then, in three or four years, you'll have the confidence to strip the paint back and respray it again to keep it fresh.
See ya soon!
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