I like the recipe! I think your "a la Terry O" idea is a good one, and one that I'm thinking about. However, there was one car--the imfamous orange one---JT's car? that sported a guage pod in the pillar. I think it was for a Mustang??!?? I may be way off from all this, but it may be worth looking into since his looked really sano too. Still, you can always make it yourself and learn something, but who wants to do that?
You can always take the whole shebang one step further and cover the fiberglass with carbon fiber for looks, but do make sure to do the other pillar with some CF as well to match.
Davy