17 replies to this topic

[Chris Skepis]

Hi everyone,


I think I've got a dificult question to be answered.
The Gold Leaf Tem Lotus made it's first appearence at Wigram NZ,
1968. Were the red, white and gold bodyworks painted in New Zealand ? or did Chapman bring them from England ?
Were they the same used in the previous races ? ( in green )

[Bernd]

Good question I would imagine that they would have been painted in NZ. I'll add another question to do with the commercial decision

Was Gold Leaf Tobacco

A. An established brand in New Zealand?
B. A just launched brand in New Zealand?
C. Not in the New Zealand market?

If the answer is C I wonder what the locals thought of it!

[David McKinney]

I'm fairly sure Gold Leaf was not sold in NZ. The promotion was very much for international, rather than local, purposes. It was the same later with John Player Special cigarettes, which were certainly never sold in NZ.
I, too, would guess the cars were painted in NZ.

[Rob29]

They must have been as they were green & yellow for the first race,I seem to remember.

[Chris Skepis]

The first three races the Team Lotus were in their normal green layout. On round four at Wigram, the were 'Gold Leaf" for the first time. I've got some more questions about it.
Were Clark and Hill signed to Gold Leaf or it was only the Team Lotus ?
Who was involved with the 'artistic' part of the job ? I mean, who decided where the red, white and gold should be in the car ?
Did Clark and Hill agree with all this new fuzz ? ( You know, for eight years Clark saw himself in a green cockpit......all of a sudden he sees himself in a 'Ferrari' !!!!!.......I don't think this color swicthing did any good to him....)

[FLB]

Well, Clark had already seen himself in a day-glo red Lotus at Indianapolis in 1966 and 1967.

[Chris Skepis]

Oh yeah . I forgot about Indy..

[BRG]

Wasn't the Gold Leaf deal with the whole of Team Lotus? So the F1, Tasman, F2, F3 and sportscars were all livereid in GL colours, irrespective of where they were racing. This was more about getting the cars photographed in the newspapers in the sponsor's colours rather than targetting the market in a particular country like NZ.

[Gary C]

According to Michael Olivers' Lotus 49 book, the first two Tasman races in 68 were run in Team Lotus colours, then Chapman did the deal & the cars were painted GL colours while they were still in NZ.
-Of course, the 'dayglo' Lotus colours at Indy was the STP livery.

[Chris Skepis]

I was looking at some Wigram pictures and I noticed that the red and the white colors are diferent from what the use in Europe later.
The red part is much more 'Ferrari' than the pinkyish red they use later. Also is the white. You can notice that is much more 'Honda"
style than the greyish adopted later. They are probably the only bodyworks Lotus had done outside England.

[FlagMan]

IIRC the early cars also had the Players 'Sailor' in the centre of the logo as opposed to the later cars which had the Union Flag - I am not sure when this was changed but it may have been on the 'European' cars.

Anyone got any pics?

[Rob29]

this was to placate the BBC who banned all TV coverage of F1 untill the offending sailor was removed.

[Chris Skepis]

What do I have to do to post a picture here ?
I have got no idea at all

[Flicker]

Chris!
Here You can find a clue...;)

http://www.atlasf1.c...=&threadid=7407
http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=10930
http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=11783

[Chris Skepis]

Thank you Flicker, I'll try to post some pics. I think I've got some interesting Tasman GLTL images.

[Ray Bell]

I would sincerely doubt there was much difference in the colours. We saw them two years in a row, and they looked no different to us... unless they changed between NZ and Australia.

Pics can be seen at the sergent site... www.sergent.com.au but mostly of NZ races, go from the home page to NZ racing, then Tasman Series and then the year.

[Chris Skepis]

Hi Ray
I visited this NZ website a while ago and I found it very good. There's just about all the info you need on the NZ leg of the Tasman Series starting from 1964 ( acctually they have all the NZ Grand Prix back to the 50's ) but unfortunally it lacks all the Australian part of the series. Do you know any other website that shows the Australian races of the series ?? One of the best sources for the Tasman Series was ( belive it or not ) a Brazilian racing magazine called Auto Esporte. All the photos and text were by Eoin Young, Bill Gavin and Geoffrey Goddard. It was really an amazing mag but finished in 1970.
I collect everything I can on the Tasman Series. After the WDC they were my second favorite.

[Ray Bell]

Just watch the pics there, some (very few, maybe only a couple) are from Australia.

I know of no Australian version, perhaps Bruce (?) will get around to it... I offered to help him once...