The famous black-and-gold John Player Special (JPS) Livery looked fantastic on a Lotus F1 car in 1972 and today, the legendary livery still looks fantastic on the new Lotus, Evija Fittipaldi launched in 2022.
The black and gold John Player Special that once graced the Team Lotus Formula 1 car became one of the greatest in history. Simple, classy and easy to spot on the track, the famous JPS colors are synonymous with some of F1’s greatest drivers. Including Ayrton Senna, Mario Andretti, and one of the sport’s biggest supporters and pioneers, Emerson Fittipaldi.
Now, the British manufacturer is paying homage to the Brazilian with a special variant of its newest hypercar, the Lotus Evija Fittipaldi Special Edition. This latest hypercar comes in black and gold.
This two-seater electric car celebrates the success of Lotus and Fittipaldi in the early 70s. The hypercar is in special black, followed by hand-painted gold accents to achieve that famous look. Other custom logos are sprinkled all over the car, including Brazil’s race number 8, Union Jack flag, and even Fittipaldi’s signature has been hand-stitched to the dashboard.
The Evija Fittipaldi’s pice de resistance is a cabin dial located on the instrument panel. This key component has actually been handcrafted from recycled aluminum belonging to the original Type 72 F1 car.
This makes the Evija Fittipaldi a part of Lotus history, not only in theory because of its livery and honorary memento, but actually because of this unique component. Lotus only built eight Evija Fittipaldis units to commemorate the eight Lotus Type 72s.
“Combining the Lotus Evija, Lotus Type 72, black and gold livery and Emerson, all in celebration of a World Championship victory 50 years later, without needing me to say more. Fittipaldi and my father enjoyed a very special relationship, and their spectacular success was a brilliant team effort by the dedicated designers and mechanics at Team Lotus,” said Lotus Managing Director Clive Chapman.
