Ken T wrote on 17. Apr 2011 at 09:31:
Those ladder chassis look very substantial, very well triangulated. Some of the early kit cars had a frame that was basically two rails from front to back and that was it !.
Some of them still are! I've been comparing Cobra replica chassis recently and they range from this:

(Which apparently is surprisingly stiff, can't see it myself!)
To this:

Or if you have a lot of money:

And those are all currently available kits - some of them really are 'form over function' in terms of 'looks nice with the body on, probably handles like a wet fish', which makes choosing one rather hard indeed!
Oops.. bit of a drift there, sorry!