Just been away for a week and had plenty of time to ponder with a resulting list of continuing daft questions - Sadly however I have got home and forgotten them all except this one:

Reading an old edition of CCC I was reading about some new Caterham (not sure of protocol re *s for them) which described the aluminium skin as pre-stressed to assisit with stiffness of the tubular steel chassis. How is this pre-stressing carried out? is it possible for us mere mortals?