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You haven't met my brother - he tapes a pic of one to the back of his missus' head... I hate to say it but I agree that Mardave stuff has got a really British engineering smell about it, like landrovers, BSAs, Triumphs etc - no effort in design or manufacture, heavy, leak oil everywhere & spend most of their lives as non-runners, but parts are cheap & their owners love to rub them. Having said that, Mardave really got something right with the bangers - people are falling over themselves to pay extortionate money for a flat piece of ally with a few plastic cut-outs & 4 bottle tops strapped to it! (Yes, my bro loves them too). I have to say, the Meteor's quite posh for them, so if you feel you have to own a Mardave, the Meteor's got to be the best one to have. What was the other (Less posh) buggy they did called? I forget

eddrick wrote:

You haven't met my brother - he tapes a pic of one to the back of his missus' head... I hate to say it but I agree that Mardave stuff has got a really British engineering smell about it, like landrovers, BSAs, Triumphs etc - no effort in design or manufacture, heavy, leak oil everywhere & spend most of their lives as non-runners, but parts are cheap & their owners love to rub them. Having said that, Mardave really got something right with the bangers - people are falling over themselves to pay extortionate money for a flat piece of ally with a few plastic cut-outs & 4 bottle tops strapped to it! (Yes, my bro loves them too). I have to say, the Meteor's quite posh for them, so if you feel you have to own a Mardave, the Meteor's got to be the best one to have. What was the other (Less posh) buggy they did called? I forget

Sadly the history of the Mardave brand isn't well documented, as far as I can tell the history of their buggies goes something like:

1970's? - Marauder: RWD, IC powered, folded alloy chassis, vacformed styrene body & wing, double wishbone front suspension, single wishbone rear with "interesting" universal joints - metal parts are screwed to a flexible rubber disc.

early 80's? - Apache: very similar chassis to Marauder, but electric powered & has an addtional plastic top deck. White 6-hole plastic wheels, vacformed driver figure, vacformed lexan body with louvres on rear, functional rollover hoop & rear bumper "cage", fake exhausts.


1987ish - Meteor: seem to be several distinct versions:

Prototype (as shown on early box): as early type but with Apache wheels

Earliest: electric power, came with MSC & white endbell 540 motor, RWD, double wishbone suspension front & rear, adjustable oil shocks all round, ball diff, vacformed styrene body & wing (boxart paint is white with red stripes), alloy chassis with single fold, 6 hole Apache wheels but in red plastic, battery pack held across the chassis (& out the sides of the bodywork) by two plastic cups.
Rear underguard/bumper & vacformed driver figure not in all kits.

1989 on: as above but with different boxart - medium blue with white & yellow stripes

Later version (mk.2?) - as above but with "gold" anodised chassis & increased angle on chassis plate & dished wheels

LWB versions - longer chassis, usually in plain alloy but may be anodised in various colours, uses Cobra body (both versions) ... I'm not clear if this was available as a kit, as an upgrade kit, or just as parts

1995? to 2010? - Cobra: All new design - I think the only thing it shared with the Meteor was the ball diff; electric power, RWD, double wishbone suspension front & rear, adjustable oil shocks all round, ball diff, vacformed polycarbonate body & wing, alloy chassis with angled sides, longditudinal battery position. Body seems to have two versions - one with square side pods, one where they are tapered from the front.

edited 30-Nov-11 - forgot about the apache




re the 1/12th scale cars - I was skeptical about why people would pay more for a beat up example on ebay than they would on a new kit ... until I built one myself - for a "cheap" racing class they can suck the money right out of your wallet - I built one intending to race in the "Saloon Stock" class ... so, buy the kit, radio gear, ESC, battery, different chassis, countersunk screws, front & rear bumpers, different shell, different wheels & tyres, different motor, different body fittings, upgraded servo saver, metal geared servo, rear chassis extension, mid chassis extension ... I reckon I sunk the best part of

Cobra, that was what I was forgetting. I lied, it's the cobra my brother has sexual interest in... I've got a brand spanking new mardave ball diff in my loft somewhere if you want it for yours? I had 2 marauders, an early & a late, both were awful - incredibly unstable but hugely fast in a straight line. On flat tarmac, you had to feed the power on really gently, stab it & it would just spin out. In fact I suspect although it would have the beans to outdrag anything you were racing against, you'd be so preoccupied with keeping it under control, you'd never be competitive! Back in the 80s when I was racing, I sometimes used to race in the 1/10 buggy class with a mardave 1/12 bandit car (4 cell) & hold my own (V entertaining!). Had a couple of ministocks, but like you say, not interesting. A couple of years back I scratch built a 1/12 based on mardave V12 bits (Can't have cost more than 20 quid ex electrics), performance resembled that of the marauder - ballistic but uncontrollable! I ended up putting rubber Tamiya tyres on it, which improved things, but it got expensive as it wore the rears out in just a few runs. Next plan was to run it on 4 cells to tame it, but I got bored & sold it before that.

Cleaned everything yesterday, today I've rubbed the body down & got it a bit closer to white...

All the wings on the 2nd hand Meteors I've had have been well oversize, so I've cut it down to more boxart proportions ...

Sanded back the grey plastic primer I put on yesterday ... ideally I'd repeat the process & try not go back to bare plastic that time, but the blue I'll be using is fairly dense so I think I'll be lazy

Got some paint on yesterday - Humbrol acrylic "French Blue", which is not quite right, but not bad either - managed to get some shine on it too, which surprised me - this stuff usually comes out fairly satin, even in warm weather ...

I'm going to let it sit for a while & do the rest of the "late mk.1" boxart scheme in vinyl

made some patterns, cut out the stickers out of yellow, white & black self-adhesive vinyl, put them on wet & squeegeed out the water, trimmed to size ... still need to sort out the "Mardave" text for the sides & numbers

Have put the chassis back together, without electrics for the time being ... I'm thinking the red dish wheels make it look a bit too busy, so I may swap some wheels around & repaint a set of the earlier 3-piece, 6 hole wheels in white & put them on this car.

looks great!!!should get some alloy wheels and ajustable aluminium shocks
will it be a shelfer or a runner?

I actually found one of these NIB in a hobby shop about 2 years ago, would you believe. Got it for $100. The kit was complete as far as I could tell, and I kept it for a little while. But eventually decided it wasn't my thing, so I listed it on ebay...at which point it sold for...$100.

Sadly, they have very little monetary value at this point. Interesting car though, and a very nice restoration!