I'm guessing not many of you guys would be familiar with the company Mardave?? They were/are a British company who make simple & cheap R/C cars. The Cobra was released in the early 90s & with a price tag of under £100 for a 2wd buggy that (in TQ guise) was fully ballraced, had alloy bodied shocks & a slipper clutch it proved a bit of a hit with the club racer.
By the time I started working at 18 (95ish) I was running a Losi XX as my outdoor car for big meetings and the Cobra was used for indoor club nights during the week. The car actually proved very effective, set-up for running on carpet using Schumacher's 'velcro-like' micro spike tyres, so much so I campaigned it in preference over the Losi at larger indoor meetings over the winter months.
The car was very precise & lively yet pretty easy to drive... the car's only draw back seemed to be the in-efficient gearbox which was filled with very course pitch gears - that, no matter how hot the motor was, it seemed to have a terminal top speed. Hence the idea of fitting the XX gearbox. The gearbox itself was donated from my mate's worn out Losi & the parts to fit it, I designed myself & another friend machined them up for me from my drawings - in fact these parts were made at Ilmor Engineering, who at the time built the Mercedes engines both for the Mclaren F1 team & Penske Indy car team!
Some pictures
