This press advertisement dated January 13, 1968 changed the racing world as we knew it in many parts of the globe, the US and some other places excepted…
The days of the mobile fag, franger and fragrance wrapper were underway, for better or worse.
While Lotus and Imperial Tobacco were negotiating the commercial deal which would take advantage of the FIA/CSI relaxation of rules relating to the advertising of non-trade products and services on racing cars, the business of motorsport rolled on.
Jim Clark took off where he left off at the end of 1967, the fastest car/driver combination won the South African Grand Prix in Kyalami. Clark won aboard his Lotus 49 Ford from Graham Hill in the other Team Lotus entry, and Jochen Rindt’s Brabham BT24 Repco.
After that race – his final Championship GP win as events transpired – he flew to New Zealand along with Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Chris Amon, Pedro Rodriguez and Graham Hill to join other internationals, Frank Gardner and Piers Courage, and local drivers for the 1968 Tasman Cup.
That summer the highly competitive 2.5-litre series comprised four rounds in NZ, and in Australia, commencing with the NZ GP at Pukekohe on January 6, and concluding with the South Pacific Trophy at Longford, Tasmania on March 4. Eight events in eight weeks on both Kiwi islands, shipping the circus across the Tasman Sea from the very south of the South Island (Teretonga) to Brisbane…oh, yes, and prepare the cars for the 100 mile races too. While the series was famous for sun, fun and spunkmuffins there was some serious racing as well. To win the Tasman required a mix of speed, discipline, endurance and organisation.
Chris Amon jumped out of the blocks, winning at both Pukekohe, and Levin aboard his works Ferrari Dino 246T. JC had engine failure after 44laps in the NZ GP while in the lead, and suspension problems at Levin (above). He ran wide off the track early, caught Amon but then went off again and bent a radius rod while trying to pass Chris.
During the week between Levin and the Lady Wigram Trophy round, the small team looking after Jim’s Lotus 49 Ford DFW organised a signwriter of some talent, at Hutchinson Ford, Christchurch to apply the cancer-stick signage in accordance with the Gold Leaf corporate identity standards manual…a document with which Lotus staff were to become intimately familiar.
Kiwi journalist, Allan Dick wrote that there was a function held in Christchurch on the Friday evening of the race weekend to unveil the new colours, perhaps the shot below is during said gig, albeit the venue doesn’t appear particularly salubrious.
Big Wigram crowd taking in the candy-coloured Lotus – chassis number R2, Jim’s 1967 F1 mount – over the January 20 weekend. Clark provided plenty of cheer for the suits back in the UK when he won ‘on GLTL debut’ from Amon and Denny Hulme’s F2 Brabham BT23 Ford FVA.
Bruce McLaren won for BRM at Teretonga in the final NZ round. He finished in front of Clark after Jim had an off while in the lead. Bruce’s mount was a 2.5-litre V12 engined BRM P126, a chassis designed by Len Terry, and being blooded in advance of the ‘68 F1 season by McLaren, Rodriguez and Richard Attwood.
Clark had a much stronger run on the other side of the Tasman Sea – where he was joined by teammate Graham Hill, who had been enjoying a family holiday – winning the Surfers Paradise 100, the Warwick Farm 100 in Sydney and the Australian Grand Prix at Sandown, in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. Only the final round at Longford eluded him, Piers Courage took a wonderful victory there in his F2 McLaren M4A Ford FVA in streaming rain.
When he departed Australia on or about March 5, Jim Clark had won his final GP and championship, he died a month later at Hockenheim during the first heat of the Deutschland Trophy, Euro F2 Championship round, aboard a GLTL Lotus 48 Ford FVA on April 7, 1968.
Etcetera…
Graham Hill displaying his new colours, ones he immortalised in the F1 record book by the end of a tragic year, Sandown paddock, February 1968.
Hill raced Lotus 49 chassis R1, early spec 49s used a ZF five-speed transaxle rather than the later Hewland DG300, engine is the Ford Cosworth DFW 2.5-litre V8. The skinny rears – front tyres – are for transport purposes. A bit of arcane trivia for Melburnians is that the GLTL Lotuses were fettled in the Head Brothers, BMC dealership and bodyworks, at 504 Neerim Road, Murrumbeena, (below) not too far from Sandown.
Ford Australia must have kicked in a few dollars to the budget, note the crude ‘Australia’ added to the deft signwriting on the nose of the Lotus executed in Christchurch. The elaborate trailer is as flash as the one I used to tow my Formula Vee.
Jim Clark about to go out and win the AGP at Sandown. The official margin between Clark’s Lotus 49 and Chris Amon’s Ferrari 246T is one-tenth/sec, but it was closer than that!
Fags…
Kiwi enthusiast/historian Graham Woods wrote that “The first car (other than in places like the US where such advertising had been allowed) to carry tobacco sponsorship was in South Africa in a round of the SA F1 Championship.”
“The driver was John Love, and the tobacco company, Gunston. Three weeks before Wigram, Love and Sam Tingle started the South African GP, the opening round of the world championship in a Brabham and SA built LDS on January 1. Love was ninth and Tingle DNF – both were in Gunston colours. “
“South Africa was Jim Clark’s last GP win in the green and yellow of Team Lotus. The first race for Lotus in GLTL colours was at Wigram, the first championship GP, the Spanish GP at , a race won by Graham Hill’s Lotus 49 Ford…another GP that got away from Chris Amon, whose Ferrari 312 dominated practice and led most of the race.”
Afterthought…
The afterthought goes to Allan Dick of New Zealand’s Classic Auto News.
‘Historic image of Jim Clark’s Lotus 49T (“T” for Tasman) at Wigram 1968. It’s historic because this was the first time the public had seen the new Gold Leaf sponsorship — a first for Formula One on this scale.
The deal with Lotus and the tobacco company had been finalised between Levin and Wigram and it was done in “secret”.’
‘There had been an official and rather exclusive unveiling on the Friday evening in the snobby “The Motor Racing Club” way of doing things in those days, but it was Saturday morning when the great unwashed got to see it. There it sat, paint so new it still looked sticky and fenced off with a great lump of old rope! The reaction? I can still remember it clearly! It was “Yucchhh!” Nobody liked it. It looked cheap and taudry. Nobody thought it was good. We far preferred the dark green with yellow stripe — traditional Lotus. But the world got used to it.’
Credits…
Bryan Miller Collection, LAT Photographic, Allan Batt, Ray Sinclair, John Lawton, Warren Reid, Chris Neale, John Makeham, Allan Dick Classic Auto News
Tailpiece…
Finito…
primotipo... 