V8 vintage Winfield tobacco ad cleared by Health Department of breaching ad laws
The Department of Health and Ageing has cleared the official V8 Supercars website of breaching the strict laws on the promotion of tobacco advertising after the site posted historic images of a car heavily branded with Winfield branding.
The V8 Supercars Saturday Sleuthing feature included several photos of a car with Winfield sponsorship across the side and front of the car.
Ads for the Government’s Quitline are currently being served on the site above the images.
LOL… will the next sneaky tactic by big tobacco be sponsoring the accidental publication of vintage tobacco ads?
Before you get swamped by other motorsport fans, the “Winfeild” Commodores were not driven by Fred Gibson but run by his team. The main drivers were Jim Richards and Mark Skaife.
The whole issue of restrictions on tobacco advertising on classic racecars is one that has serious implications for the whole Historic Racing movement.
Some of the sports most famous cars carried tobacco brands: The JPS Lotus, Marlboro McLaren, Gitanes Liger in F1 and here in Australia the Marlboro Holden Dealer Team, JPS BMW and of course Winfeild and Peter Jackson racing.
Now these cars are racing in Historic events and being told to change their classic livery to meet the modern sensibilities of the 2000s.
Classic footage of races of the time are being electronically defaced to blot out the offending messages.
And how will the thought police deal with Ron Howards new film “Rush” which features many of these classic liveries including one on one of the lead protagonists car.
Should we change history, to sanitise it for the current times? And if so how far do we go?
I have hundreds of magazines of the era full of photos of these cars, should we burn these as well?
Is Mumbrella’s republishing of the photographs covered under the incidental exception that applies to the V8 Supercars website?