Defender build, what base?

[cbr6fs]

Hi guys,

I'm starting to look around for a winter project and fancy building a D90 Defender.

Initially i was looking around for a used SCX10 for i could use that as a start then buy the D90 shell and go from there, after having to pretty much ditch most of the Axial components on my XR10 though i'm not really too confident in Axial's ability to build good strong stock parts.

So i then looked at the Gelande II kit, looks to be good but if anything does fail on it then there is absolutely no chance i'll find any replacement parts locally.

Not really set a limit money wise, it will get used and bashed around though so want something strong and worth the money.

I next started thinking about building a kit from the axles up, problem there is, because i'm not in the states anything that doesn't fit and needs returning is going to bite me in the ass for postage.

So i'm pretty much stuck.
Should i just buy a new SCX10 kit and throw on a defender body when i get bored with the wrangler shell, or is the Gelande kit noticeably better?

Any other options that would be good that i haven't considered?