Another of London’s new Routemaster buses has been given an advertising makeover — this time by the guitar brand, Fender Stratocaster, which is marking its own 60th anniversary this year.
One of the buses has been wrapped in a Fender inspired design which includes an image of a giant Stratocaster guitar emblazoned across it.
The launch of the bus took place last week, as a number of music bands put on a bit of a gig for local teenagers, and some ex-teenagers next to a park in Camden.
It’s possibly an indication though that the shape of the new bus is now sufficiently engrained into commuters that wrapping the red doubledecker bus entirely with an advert as opposed to just a few posters along the edges is not seen as a problem.
The mobile advert will now serve the number 24 route, which takes in Camden and Oxford Street.
There is also a London Transport branded guitar available, at £899. Guitar players with smaller budgets might prefer these tube map guitar picks, for a fiver.
Commercial rights photos here.
Hey, you didn’t cover the Adidas Routemaster, which I love. It has a look of Darth Vader about it, all shiny and black.
This one’s not bad either; I think the natural colour of this bus is black rather than red.
They had two of them on Route 23A today! Thank you for letting us know about that – we have had a lovely, if wet, day on Salisbury Plain!
As someone who has the misfortune of having to use one of these dingy, awkwardly-designed (and let’s not forget, expensive) white elephants most days, I’d been wondering what on earth they thought they were doing when they created them. The emphasis was clearly not on providing a pleasant, practical bus.
It’s becoming clear that they’re simply designed to maximise the amount of space able to be sold for advertising.
@Simon: I can’t help but agree with you on the ‘New bus for London’. Having suffered a hideous journey from White City to Park Lane when the outside temperature was 30 degrees. I am only thankful that none of these monstrosities are on the routes that I use on a regular basis.
I think the 24 might have been chosen because it goes down (or did) Denmark Street, which has a number of shops selling guitars.
@Annabel: I really wanted to go to Imber yesterday, but wimped out because of the rain. At least there is still a chance of riding on a Routemaster in London – route 15 between the Tower and Trafalgar Square.