The Mardave Fiesta Hot Rod, the last nitro car made by Mardave based heavily on a shortened ITC Touring car, instructions are made up of 3 sets - ITC/Stockmaster/Fiesta conversion sheets. It’s also the only Mardave conversion I’m aware of where a kit was sold to convert the ITC into a Hot Rod.
I’d been wanting to add one of Mardave’s later nitro cars to the collection but have never been keen on the ITC Touring car and find it quite hard working on a car that doesn’t appeal. I loved the look of the Fiesta and when Ant offered to sell on his ITC chassis, Stockmaster wheels and brand new Fiesta shell it was an offer I couldn’t turn down! This is one project I completely underestimated regarding parts and costs, thought it would be a clean up, paint job, swap wheels and done, no where close!
After finding some conversion instructions it became clear it was’nt as simple as swapping the wheels over, managed to find someone willing to sell an original Stockmaster front wishbone and steering assembly, stripped the chassis down and drilled the new holes as per the instructions. While doing this was sent a photo of the contents of a NIB Fiesta and noticed how the Limited Edition kit featured a yellow chassis instead of the ITC blue.
While the chassis was off being powder coated got working on the shell, close as possible to the box-art.
Really pleased with the job done on the chassis, the next issue was the rear axle, the required Stockmaster axle and wheel fitment is very different to the ITC, found a great guy who supplies stock car parts and brought a near exact match to the original Stockmaster part, again I overlooked a small detail - the drive gear is attached with a screw going through the axle, the new one doesn’t feature the required hole, with no press drill I measured, used a screw and hammer to make an indent to hopefully prevent the drill bit slipping everywhere and used the power drill with the smallest bit I had with a steady hand - it worked!
Sanded the wheel rims, new tyres, look like new! Next problem - Decals? I spoke to Lee Bishop who confirmed there never was an actual Decal set for the Fiesta, it was a mix of sets Mardave made back in the 90s, by amazing chance Lee had some of these original sets for sale, 4 sets required to do an exact box-art copy!
One of the last hurdles was the shortened homemade rear body mount bracket that needed replacing, with some help a new one was fabricated based on chassis measurements and a little guesswork, this now matches the one issued in the kit.
The 25 year old Decals went on like they were brand new, some blue vinyl cut for the grill, you’ll notice different Decal layouts either side of the car, the Box-art to the left, a magazine advert shows the car looking at the right side. As I was near finishing this car a NIB became available which was just too tempting as I absolutely love it! The one part missing from the build is the moulded front bumper, will be looking into getting a mould made from the original in the box. Hope this page helps anyone looking to work on one of these very rare Mardave’s. Lewis.