Both are great cars and will fill the bill quite nicely. There are some panels on the Unique flares that get left off of some of the competition bodied cars, for some reason, that make the flares wrong (I have them for mine
!). Not sure why they do that...
I believe that you are correct, the Unique is going to get you into a quality car for less green. Also, I think you have more options for entry with Unique. Like others have said, they don't bad-mouth each other that I am aware of.
You should realize that everyone is going to vote for whatever brand that they own... that's why they own it
. So for that reason I'll advise Unique
! That said, If I didn't have the Unique, I'd have the ERA and vice versa: if I had the ERA I'd say, "If I didn't have the ERA, I'd have the Unique." Hope that makes sense.
I'll make the same basic offer as Allen, contact me if you would like to talk more, and we can swap phone numbers.
Good luck with your quest!