[Nick]

In my opinion the right period adverts make a tram (providing it carried them). There are a few at Crich that should have adverts but don't, what is everyone elses opinion? Should we get sponsorship for the right adverts? Make our own 'period' ones for and funded by modern companies or should we leave them as they are?

[andrewpendleton]

I would say that if a tram carried adverts in service, it should carry them in preservation. However, if there are companies still around whose adverts were carried in the past, it might be a source of sponsorship?

[David Holt]

1622 looks impossibly bare without any adverts, such as sad sight. No-one would consider a tramcar restoration job finished until the fleet numerals and the lining-out had been applied. It's the same with adverts where they were intrinsically characteristic of the tram, and no trams were so characteristically adorned with adverts as London trams were. Advertising revenue was absolutely integral to London tram finances - for example, every dash-board advert earned 3d per day in 1934, which was approximately when 1622 wasn’t Pullmanised. My conspiracy theorist tendencies lead me to suspect a covenant imposed by a substantial donor to 1622's "restoration", to the effect that it shall never carry adverts. It's difficult to imagine any other explanation for its persisting nudity, which takes dumbing-down to an entirely new and infuriating level. The naked fake!