British company H.Radford Coachbuilders Ltd, or Radford for short, has announced the official premiere of its Project 62, a retro-themed sports car inspired by the 1969 Lotus Type 62. It also acquired the rights for the Gold Leaf livery in the USA.
The car will be exhibited at the Lyon Air Museum in Orange District, California, USA on August 7, 2021. It sports a custom body with a few details borrowed from the Lotus catalog. There is a suspicion that the model is loosely based on the Lotus Exige, but the company refuses to comment on that. 62 coupes will be made in total.
The gold Leaf was an iconic paint scheme Lotus used for many of its Formula One racecars of the late 1960s and early 1970s. British tobacco producer John Player’s sold cigarettes under this branding, and it was not until the rise of Colin Chapman that Lotus switched to using a red-white-and-gold livery, its first one to come from a sponsor.
The Gold Leaf can be found on the Type 49B racer piloted by Graham Hill in 1968, the Lotus 72 driven by Emerson Fittipaldi and Jochen Rindt in 1970, and the Type 62 mentioned above.