Here are a couple of pics of the new back end I have done for the Mardave, which I am calling the IMA.
The concept is self-explanatory, and the results are very pleasing. The car drives as smooth as silk, and there is no mechanical noise from the lack of gears. The current set up is using a slightly low kv motor (750) which isn't drawing quite enough current as I can complete a race on about 800mAh on a 2-cell. As a result it lacks a bit of punch out of corners but is very comparable with 'normal' cars in straight line speed.
The other benefit is that the whole pod weighs just under half that of a standard plastic pod with 540 size motor and axle.
I am going to switch out the motor for a slightly bigger one (35mm can) to try to get a little more low end. Once that is proven, I will move on to stage 2 of the concept, which will be a customised rotor unit for the new motor with an integral diff.
Judging by the performance of this, it wouldn't surprise me to see all pan cars change to this type of drive before too long. Touring would benefit even more, with biased F/R drives for better cornering, but that would take some customised electronics in the ECSs to achieve.