After agreeing to take on a Marauder Mk1 & Mk2 Box-art project I ordered a Kamtec replica to also complete a Mk2 copy for myself which I’d never got round to attempting, as anyone who knows the Marauders knows the Box-art is actually quite hard to copy, there’s no exact colour information, there’s no complete set of decals, and there’s also no instructions to guide you through a paint job with what lines to follow. This is something about collecting Mardave’s I absolutely love, there’s a little bit of guess work involved in completing nearly all of their Box themes, the Marauder boxes luckily have photos from different angles on the box sides which help with doing the closest copies, as for decals the Mk1 is fairly easy, most would have come from a generic sheet they supplied in the 70s / 80s, the Mk2 is not so easy, I think they used a mix of older and some from a later sheet supplied in the late 80s/90s, I have original sheets from both so could measure to order the right sizes, the early sheet is water transfers, the later was a vinyl, modern reproductions likely have sharper colours and a better quality which does loose a slight bit of the vintage look.
The Mk1 was pre cut to a brilliant standard, something I noticed was the plastic felt slightly thinner on the Mk1 to the Mk2 which reminded me of the Mini’s.
Some of the differences between an original Mk2 and a repro Kamtec shell, cut lines are much harder to match on the Kamtec, there’s some faint lines on the inside in places, also with cutting these your best to keep checking against the chassis as quite a bit of profiling can be needed to get them to sit right. The spoiler is not an exact copy, they use a mould for a similar one, the front of the sides slope down and the whole spoiler does sit slightly differently, make sure to file off everything off the underside or it will sit wrong on the roof of the car.
Now for 2 x Mk2s!
Getting close to the finishing touches, the Mk1 was supplied with a sheet of metal mesh for the windows with the back window left clear, the Mk2 came with an easy to use plastic mesh like the Mk2 Mini, this could be harder to find than the 5mm metal mesh.
These are original Mardave sheets which are super hard to find, Copies of the big sheet from the 70s have been shared with isaydingdong who now supply broken down sheets. I did find a set that have been put together from America for the Marauder but sadly the sizes are wrong and they don’t contain everything you’ll need.
I’m super chuffed with how these turned out, they’re not perfect, not the exact right shades but as close as I could find, very slight differences on the decals, also remember Mardave Marauders we’re budget cars with a rough and ready finish, definitely not intended for collectors of shelf queens etc, compared to Box-art copies of for example Tamiya’s they’re a whole lot rarer which makes them far more interesting!! Hope this helps you with your project!