Tag Archives: Tula

Life Helmet Adverts from the 70’s (yes… those girls with the bodypaint…)

Who remembers those iconic full colour ads from the motorcycle press in the 70’s?

I had an A1-sized poster on my wall at Uni that I picked up from one of the bikes shows of the time (probably the Racing & Sporting Show at the Victoria Horticultural Halls – now that’s another “Anyone remember…” thread!). That one had two of the girls on a sidecar outfit, full “kitted out” in Life helmets and bodypaint.

I recently found a pile of old bike papers in the back of a cupboard:

This is from Motorcycle Weekly of 25/3/78 and features a Suzuki GS (by the looks of it), oh…  and some bodypaint.

If anyone out there has any more of these I’d be delighted to put them up here! [I have Google-imaged “Life Helmet Advert Bodypaint] to no avail – there’s some interesting bodypaint out there (just make sure you have safesearch turned off!

Update:

Various bike forums have responded to my challenge and have dug up the picture that I remember as the poster on my wall:

The model “Tula”, was famous later in the 80’s as she was “outed” by the tabloids as a transexual…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Cossey

Plus – found a magazine version (as opposed to the newspaper print above):

Note the different helmet…