by Bill Siegfriedt
In the May issue of Lotus Notus, Matt Slayton noted that diecast forums contain much discussion on the color of the decorations on the John Player Special Lotus F1 cars.
At the 1977 (Mosport) and 1978 (Montreal) Canadian Grands Prix. I had the opportunity to see the JPS Lotus cars up close at leisure, since we came on Thursday afternoon, and things were much more casual then.
I was especially interested, because we were Timer/Scorers at Road America from '75 to '85, and one job I had at the June Sprints was to make sure that the car numbers on 500 cars were legible at 100 mph. I had heated arguments with drivers who insisted that their gold mylar numbers made good contrast with their shiny black paint. The fact is that a reflective number does not reliably contrast with any color. They would protest and tell me their numbers were "just like the ones on the JPS Lotus."
When I inspected the JPS cars in Canada I found that Lotus had cleverly avoided the problem. Yes, the pinstriping and JPS logos were gold mylar. But the car numbers were tan paint! From a distance, and especially at speed, you didn't notice the difference, but from 5 feet in a garage, the difference was quite noticeable.
Thought you'd like to know.
