Mardave Meteor prototype/press car

[dinglem]

I was certain I had already posted this up on here, but i cannot for the life of me find any sign of a post so here it is again just in case.

The Meteor was more of a British thing but a manufacturer called Mardave. These were very popular cars as they offered a very very low-cost avenue into relatively competitive racing at that time - we're talking early 1986 here. Spare parts were pence rather than pounds.

I had one as my first real racing car, and thankfully I still have it. They have quite a following in the UK and were the subject of a series of 'How to Modify Your Meteor' articles in Radio Race Car magazine by a racer called Greg Halliday.

Anyway - the initial review article in 1986 showed a basic swb Meteor and gave a positive appraisal of the kit/performance.

The car is well known for having predominantly black components with flashes of red for the shocks and on the early cars, ball joints also.

However, note the black and white pictures in the early mag article, which appear to show another car with mainly white components, with flashes of black. There are a few other notable differences over the production car.... the shocks are black, the rear wishbones are flat-faced rather than having the diagonal strengthening webbing of the production items and the rear shock tower is aluminium rather than red plastic. This is also true of the box-art car which has the same black shocks but by that time had black wishbones but still the metal rear tower.

Anyway - long story short, a fair while ago i ended up finding an ex-Mardave employee who claimed to have liberated this press car from the factory and had stored it up in his loft for the subsequent 35years....

....and here it is.

This is certainly a one-off and i am hoping to finish off the new ABS Meteor bodyshell I have in the blue and white livery it presumably originally came with.

[Moggie XL]

Thanks for posting these photos of the prototype Meteor. I have an early Meteor with small wheels and mechanical speed control that would look good in box art colours. That blue front bumper looks good

[Moggie XL]

Have you finished restoring this Meteor. If it looks as good as the other cars you've done it should be worth seeing.

[dinglem]

Still going with this slow burner, but getting there! It is one I have to get absolutely right.

[Moggie XL]

I remember an advert in Radio Race Car showing this Car before it was released and it had a clear lexan shell that covered the gearbox RC10 style, have you seen this. Is that aluminium shock mount exactly the same size as the red moulded one

[dinglem]

Yes, and yes!

[Moggie XL]

That's the one I was thinking of, do you know what it was. Was it just a prototype that was never used

[dinglem]

Not figured that one out yet….

[Frankentruck]

The front and rear suspension have some similarities to RC10 suspension. Interesting.