Letters from Pacific, Simtek and others from '94/95

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 02 Jan 2013, 17:13

Hello everybody

About 20 years ago I started following F1. For some reason I had a passion for minor/reject teams. My favorite one was Pacific, but I also used to like Simtek, Forti and so on, 'till HRT in the recent era (see my avatar, lucky enough to receive the club card

).
By the way, in 1994 I was 14 years old, and have sent letters to the F1 teams (all of them) and some Indycar teams asking for stickers, posters, infos, things...
Well, I got a lot of letters and material that now, 20 years after, I want to share with you, hoping you will appreciate it

Here's a photo of some things I'll share as soon as I've some spare time. Sorry for the quality, it's just a photo taken with the phone to give you an idea

There're Pacific, Simtek, Benetton, Mclaren, Tyrrel, Williams, Ferrari, Sauber and Jordan (+ Team Penske and Newman Haas Racing from indycar).

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 02 Jan 2013, 17:17

Did you just ask them "hey, do you have some stuff I can have?" That stuff looks really cool

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 02 Jan 2013, 17:20

Yeah, something like "I'm your biggest fan ever, send me something"

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 02 Jan 2013, 17:34

Wish I had done something like that, particularly with Mastercard Lola and Simtek!

Faustus · Post by **Faustus** » 02 Jan 2013, 20:06

Superb!

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 02 Jan 2013, 23:26

Scan it! I see a potential reject goldmine here, especially with Pacific looking so prominent there...

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 03 Jan 2013, 16:56

I have 2 from Pacific, let's start with the one from '94

FMecha · Post by **FMecha** » 03 Jan 2013, 17:17

The letters are filled of publicocrap! Rejectful! :lol:

Let's see...

To win the World Championship by the year 2000

Don't be daft, how you can aim for titles by 2000 if you have a severely bad results? :lol:

To quote Ron Dennis [...] "Formula One needs teams like Pacific".

Oh really? Did he say that? From which prespective - rejectfulness, I presume? :lol:

Post by **Ataxia** » 03 Jan 2013, 17:22

FMecha wrote:The letters are filled of publicocrap! Rejectful!

Let's see...

To win the World Championship by the year 2000

Don't be daft, how you can aim for titles by 2000 if you have a severely bad results?

To quote Ron Dennis [...] "Formula One needs teams like Pacific".

Oh really? Did he say that? From which prespective - rejectfulness, I presume?

Could imagine the full quote was something like "McLaren needs Philippe Alliot like F1 needs teams like Pacific..."

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 03 Jan 2013, 20:00

This is dynamite.

"Dear we can't be bothered to write your name in this blank space, please give us some of your money (because nobody else will). We're going to win, with an ex-convict (strange how we don't mention that unfortunate incident in 1991 that brought Michael Schumacher into F1, isn't it?) and the son of an actor who decided he wanted to race but the size of his wallet far exceeds the size of his talent (strange how we never mention any of his championship placings since 1985, isn't it?). No, really, we are. Genuinely, there's no way we'll end up on a website run by a couple of Australians because we racked up a huge string of DNQs, tried to piggyback on board the once-great name of Lotus, stuck a tea tray on the front of out next car and hired Johnny 'Giovanni Lavaggi' Carwash and Jean-Denis 'what's he doing' Délétraz to drive it."

Now let's see how this compares to some of the more successful teams. There's a letter from Benetton in the pile, and one from Ferrari, though that might well be written in Italian...

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 03 Jan 2013, 20:05

Love your comment

Just a quick note, my name and address are deleted by me

girry · Post by **girry** » 03 Jan 2013, 21:02

We hope you join us in reaching our goal - To win The World Championship by year 2000

Honestly, I laughed waaaay too much at this.

thanks tumbano, these seem to be worth gold :p

Post by **mario** » 03 Jan 2013, 21:52

tumbano wrote:Well, I got a lot of letters and material that now, 20 years after, I want to share with you, hoping you will appreciate it

I'm sure that we will indeed - it's quite an interesting collection that you have there, and you've clearly looked after that material too given that it looks to be in pretty good condition. Just as an aside, did you ever join the supporters club that Pacific wanted to set up?

HonoraryNortherner · Post by **HonoraryNortherner** » 03 Jan 2013, 23:49

To any BTCC fans here, I wonder if Grahame Glew (Pacific Marketing director) is somehow related to BTCC racer Phill Glew?

Pointrox · Post by **Pointrox** » 04 Jan 2013, 01:06

HonoraryNortherner wrote:To any BTCC fans here, I wonder if Grahame Glew (Pacific Marketing director) is somehow related to BTCC racer Phill Glew?

Why yes, yes he is

HonoraryNortherner · Post by **HonoraryNortherner** » 04 Jan 2013, 01:13

Pointrox wrote:
HonoraryNortherner wrote:To any BTCC fans here, I wonder if Grahame Glew (Pacific Marketing director) is somehow related to BTCC racer Phill Glew?

Why yes, yes he is

Brilliant!

Things like this make me love F1 Rejects. Does this mean we can add Phill to the Reject watch thread via association?

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 04 Jan 2013, 09:57

mario wrote:Just as an aside, did you ever join the supporters club that Pacific wanted to set up?

Unfortunately I didn't, I joined the Jordan club instead.
Btw, I wrote them again in 1995 and they had the club up. Too bad I didn't take that unique occasion

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 04 Jan 2013, 10:33

Let's continue with Simtek.
All I got from them was this letter and an autographed photo of David Brabham. Unfortunately I've lost the photo (it must be somewhere but I forgot where

).
They never wrote me back with the "Simtek supporters club" infos :evil:

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 04 Jan 2013, 13:50

Banbury, eh? Where Marussia are now based... after giving Nick Wirth the elbow. 1.2 miles apart, after all this time...

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 04 Jan 2013, 15:00

dinizintheoven wrote:Banbury, eh? Where Marussia are now based... after giving Nick Wirth the elbow. 1.2 miles apart, after all this time...

Yep, my Dad has worked down the road from both teams, his business used to be based on the same estate as Simtek and is now round the corner from Marussia! And the same thing has happened with the Arden team. Used to be opposite Prodrive and is now on Thorpe Way as well! Plus Kenny Roberts Snr's old MotoGP team was almost opposite where Marussia is now.

Here is where they all are/were based, it's amazing such a small town of 40,000 can play a big part in motorsport. If you don't work in a warehouse, or manufacturing food, then chances are if you live in Banbury you'll be working in motorsport! :lol:

f1andrea · Post by **f1andrea** » 04 Jan 2013, 19:29

giraurd wrote:
We hope you join us in reaching our goal - To win The World Championship by year 2000

Honestly, I laughed waaaay too much at this.

thanks tumbano, these seem to be worth gold :p

EPIC!!

These letters are very interesting, you've to be proud! Grande!

midgrid · Post by **midgrid** » 04 Jan 2013, 19:39

Thanks for posting these!

The fact that Nick Wirth himself replied himself is quite telling - even Pacific had a Marketing Director to answer fan mail!

Ferrim · Post by **Ferrim** » 06 Jan 2013, 11:20

"Upon joining Club Pacific you will receive:

(...)

Results Chart to keep you fully up to speed of Pacific's current position"

:lol:

It isn't as absurd as it appears at first. Today we can look for F1 results at many websites, but back in 1994-95 all that people had were newspapers - and I guess many of them wouldn't even list Pacific in the race results! :lol:

midgrid · Post by **midgrid** » 06 Jan 2013, 15:54

Autosport magazines from this period have adverts for phone numbers that you can ring up during working hours to find out about the latest F1 and motorsport news. Those crazy, pre-internet days...

Sunshine_Baby_[IT] · Post by **Sunshine_Baby_[IT]** » 06 Jan 2013, 21:03

This thread is simply great.
Lucky you! *.*

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 07 Jan 2013, 10:36

Let's proceed, Benetton.
In 1994 they sent me a tube with a big poster, unfortunately I don't have it anymore.
In 1995 I got the classic club letter...

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 07 Jan 2013, 10:38

And then Williams

tumbano · Post by **tumbano** » 07 Jan 2013, 10:40

And tyrrell

f1-gast · Post by **f1-gast** » 08 Jan 2013, 21:50

Wow this looks super !!!

Hound55 · Post by **Hound55** » 09 Jan 2013, 01:27

This is really cool. Cracked up when I read the part about Pacific's goal of a championship by 2000.

FMecha · Post by **FMecha** » 09 Jan 2013, 18:20

The Tyrrell biographies must be from pre-season of 1994, right?

LellaLombardi · Post by **LellaLombardi** » 12 Jan 2013, 20:43

I did similar in my teens and got a good haul from the teams. Unfortunately I have no idea where any of it is now, in the depths of my parents' loft most probably. I remember getting sent:

- A scale replica of Gianni Morbidelli's helmet when I wrote to Arrows. I was absolutely made up because it arrived on a Monday morning before school in a big jiffy bag (remember when you're 14 you don't get much post). What a way to start the week

- Ferrari sent me signed pics of Alesi and Berger, which, as far as I could tell were genuine signatures. Lots of other teams sent me "signed" pics of their drivers but they were all printed

- Lots of factsheets like the ones already shown and requests to join expensive supporters clubs which my pocket money would not stretch to.

- I had a letter from Pacific identical to the one here - I remember at the time thinking it sounded a bit pleading!

Verde · Post by **Verde** » 14 Jan 2013, 13:40

I did the same two or three years ago: emailed all the Formula 1 and GP2 teams trying to get some sorts of souvenirs, letters and things alike. Some of them replied, mostly from GP2. I received, among some interesting things, an autograph from Kamui Kobayashi while he was a DAMS driver.

As soon as I find out some free time, I can upload everything I received.

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 14 Jan 2013, 22:40

I'm sooooooo jealous now! Pacific is my all-time favorite team in Formula 1. Don't know why, I just love them. Unfortunately I watched Formula 1 in '96 the first time so it is really hard now to get anything related to the team nowadays

Verde · Post by **Verde** » 15 Jan 2013, 12:31

I know a Brazilian journalist that was lucky and smart enough to afford a Pacific wool jacket in 1995. He said the jacket is really itchy, heh.

David AGS · Post by **David AGS** » 05 Mar 2013, 11:06

Going back 10 years or so ago, there was a temporary f1 merchandice shop on Spencer street, in Melbourne's CBD (for those interested, shop was about 15mins walk from casino!). I do recall shop selling Simtek overalls on a fitting rack, but at that time was above my spending budget.

I cannot recall price, but would love to have that right now!

racefan · Post by **racefan** » 20 Nov 2014, 17:56

i know this is already an old topic, but is there someone who's got some press releases of Simtek, Pacific and maybe some other older 90s teams to share them here? would be amazing, because i'm in the need of some logos from Simtek, Pacific, Minardi a.s.o.

midgrid · Post by **midgrid** » 20 Nov 2014, 20:06

Pacific's 1995 website still exists in its original form (although not all of the links work).

racefan · Post by **racefan** » 20 Nov 2014, 21:31

yes i know and there are even the sponsor logos, but they are way to small

Myrvold · Post by **Myrvold** » 21 Nov 2014, 21:22

David AGS wrote:but at that time was above my spending budget.

I cannot recall price, but would love to have that right now!

Took a trip to Nice and Monaco this year. Found an two somewhat hidden motorsport shops there. The one in Nice had lot's of Blancpain stuff, the one in Monaco however. That one had lot's of stuff from many teams. Found quite a lot of 97/98 Jordan crew shirts with the original names on them (would've been weird to go around with "William" on me...). However, I found one hidden gem there, quite literally hidden as well. A LOLA BMS Scuderia Italia crew shirt from 1993! I think it was 120 EUR for it. Steep price, but I wouldn't have any problems buying it, but it was XL-size. I decided that even though it would be crazy rare nowadays, I would also liked to actually use it sometimes... So 120 for something 2-3 sizes to big. No thanks.

Sorta regret it, sorta don't. The Blancpain Lamborghini Shirts however was surprisingly classy, and without the Lambo-logo I'm sure it could've passed as 'smart-casual' dress code.