Lotus Racing Set

A very stylish set from the heyday of Lotus, Jackie Stewart was winning Grand prix, James Bond drove their road cars and those cars were as pretty as they have ever been. The Players Cigarette colours look fantastic too, I think I even smoked them myself in those days. I don't smoke now of course - gave that up more than 20 years ago. This set consisted of the Lotus 72 Grand Prix car in team Lotus colours of black and gold with the 315 Lotus Elite II painted black with gold & black stickers to match the racing car and a low-loader trailer sprayed gold.

The Great Book of Corgi has this set running from 1976 to 1979 and the picture in the book has the racing car in its second release when the Players cigarette (JPS - John Player Special) graphics had been changed to Texaco. Ramsay's Guide has two versions. The first one running from 1976 to 1979 with the JPS racing Lotus and the revised version with Texaco graphics running from 1979 to 1983. This second version is not mentioned in the Great Book of Corgi. Model Collector Price Guide does not show separate versions nor does it give dates.

The stand-alone Lotus 72 GP car (N.154) ran from 1973 to 1979 with JPS graphics and from 1979 to 1983 with Texaco graphics so the probability is that Ramsay is correct - and that the Great Book of Corgi is wrong in that the racing car in the gift set exactly mirrored the core range No.154 car and at any given time the car sold singly and the car in the gift set had the same graphics, that is JPS up to 1979 and Texaco after 1979. If this is true, and we follow Ramsay, then the JPS set is the one to get as it is valued at about tree times the price of the Texaco set.