Gives me shivers now Gav thinking of what I need to get to you somehow although the packing will be a fair bit better than what was under your mate's backglass.

I wouldn't be transporting any machine with the backglass in the head - packing or not.
I recently bought one from Melbourne and the bloke I got it off packed it in a 16mm mdf box padded with bubble wrap and as far as I am concerned it is the only way to guarantee its safe arrival.
Still when you've got some cowboy driving a forktruck there's plenty of other machine damage that can happen, unless you strap it securely to a pallet.