Radford is bringing back the iconic John Player Special (JPS) black-and-gold motorsport colours for its run at The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb on June 25. Oh, and the car will be driven by a former Top Gear presenter, who has a Kiwi connection.
That's a lot to... unpack, as we say in the marketing biz. Radford first: it's a low-volume sports car maker part-owned by British television presenter Ant Antstead and former Formula One driver Jenson Button, reviving the name of a famous British coachbuilding firm from the 1960s. It made posh Minis for celebrities, for example, and also built the Lotus Europa from 1966-75.
In fact, modern Radford's Type 62-2 is intended to be a reboot of the Europa Type 62, a stillborn racing version of the road car; it's even based on the platform of a reasonably modern Lotus, the Exige. Radford plans to build 62 of them, and if you have to ask why you haven't been paying attention.
But Radford has also decided to have a crack at Pikes Peak this year, in a one-off version of the new car called the Pikes Peak Edition Type 62-2. It will be driven by rally and race driver Tanner Foust, who is also quite famous for being a host on the US version of Top Gear (2010-16). As an aside, he currently races for NEOM McLaren in the Extreme E off-road EV racing series, alongside Kiwi Emma Gilmour.
Radford describes the Pikes Peak Type 62-2 as a "truly international project". The vehicle design was completed in France, the drivetrain has been developed and built in Austria, and the 3D printing, the all-new carbon monocoque completed in the UK and final assembly and project management has all taken place at Radford's HQ in California.
It weighs in at 861kg and utilises most of the same bodywork as the standard Type 62-2, but widened by 230mm and now including a full composite monocoque versus the aluminium chassis of the road car.
JUBU Performance has built a bespoke drivetrain around the supercharged 3.5-litre V6. The car should achieve a top speed of nearly 260km/h and 0-60mph (96km/h) in "under 2.2 seconds" says the company.
The JPS livery is a big talking point. It's so famous and so closely associated with Lotus in motorsport, it's easy to forget it was and still is a cigarette brand. Although those three letters don't actually appear on the new car.
John Player livery was on Lotus racecars in New Zealand in 1968, when the 49s driven by Jim Clark and Graham Hill in the Tasman Series sported the ciggie maker's Gold Leaf colours; they changed to the now-classic black-and-gold in 1972. The livery is also a big part of Australasian motorsport culture thanks to JPS Team BMW (1981-87), which ran in Touring Cars (among other series) and featured Kiwi drivers Jim Richards and Neville Crichton.
But the last really big outing for JPS livery in an international event was when Ayrton Senna drove for Lotus in the 1986 F1 season.
