Back in 1981, the marketing people said they wanted to prepare a brochure for the launch of the new style Comet and that they would send out a prototype to be photographed professionally in typical African settings. The team were to be there for two days only as it was pretty expensive to have a professional film team on location.
The truck arrived and they arrived a week later.
The truck was painted a sandy beige colour so, at the end of the first day, I asked them ““are you filming other trucks in any other countries?”” They said no this is it and the photos will go in the new brochure. It is a rush job.
I said, hell that’s going to be a pretty boring brochure with lots of photos of one single truck so why don’t we change the colour and make it Leyland blue.
That might be nice , but we dont have time and we cant wait because we have to finish up after tomorrow’s shoot , they said.
I didn’t say any more and they went off to the hotel at the end of the day.
I then got two of our works painters organised to rub the Comet down, mask it up and spray it over in blue. Didnt take long at all and it was a proper job.
You can imagine how surprised (and delighted) they were next morning.
That’s why you will see a beige and blue Comet on the brochure.
This shot was taken on the pontoon ferry (hand pulled) over the Kafue river near Chiawa, close to where the Kafue meets the Zambezi.
