Hi Ian,
I used a locally made car bra (
Car Bra Australia -) in one of my trips last year and have some mixed emotions about it.
Whilst it certainly stops stone damage and "sandblasting" of the front end it did create a couple of issues for me.
1. I found that with the bra fitted there was a lot of wind "fluttering/bellowing" of the bra on the uppermost edge on the bonnet by oncoming b-doubles or road trains, so much so that I resorted to adding an elastic strap right across the top edge and strapped to the wheel arches in an attempt to minimise the movement of the bra in that area, it was somewhat a help but still found some fine scratching to the duco because of it.
2. There was some duco scratching in the wheel arch are on both sides where the bra wasn't stretched quite tight enough against the body and again was caused by wind buffeting.
3. When I removed the bra after our trip I noticed some staining of the acrylic headlights, seems some sort of chemical reaction took place between the clear headlight material on the bra and my headlights, some did polish out but it's still visible to me, others would not notice unless this was pointed out to them.
So, whilst it does do a great job to minimise stone damage if does come with some issues so I would not recommend the "car bra" option based on my experience.
I did get some quotes on the 3M clear film before buying the car bra and at the time i thought it was quite expensive however it is a "once of" expense and will stay on for protection on an ongoing basis and if you believe the advertising it is nearly invisible and does not damage the duco.
If you go down the clear film road, I suggest you get all the exposed front end areas covered including 1/4 to 1/2 bonnet, bumper, door mirrors, top of windscreen area and the inside of your door handles (yep, found some stone chips in there as well).
Let us know what you settle on.
Tonyb
BTW, in my pic, under the T1 bra you will find my T2, the bra I fitted originally was made for the T1 model.