The sudden removal of Monster merchandise from the team’s online store in early 2023 came amid a global crackdown from the brand on licensing rights.
Tickford has subsequently been selling a range of black and green clothing with generic #6 and Cam Waters branding, rather than the usual, sponsor-laden kit.
However, a new range of Monster Tickford shirts, jackets, caps and beanies has now appeared in the team’s online store and is on sale trackside at the Sandown 500.
Team owner Rod Nash is pleased to have the matter squared away.
“The Monster merchandise has been under scrutiny from HQ, with all of their sporting participants having to have formal licensing to make the merch and to sell it,” Nash explained to Speedcafe.
“That’s the result of a global tighten-up on, typically for a brand like Monster, having a lot of counterfeit problems.
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“So they’ve just tidied all their processes up. Anybody producing merch has to be under a strict license.
“It works out well because at least you know where you stand with it. You have to submit all your designs for approval and then go to market, so it keeps it nice and tidy and legit for us as a team.
“Monster is the big name for car #6 obviously, but then you’ve got the other subsidiary sponsors that form part of it.”
Nash added that the agreement had been signed off some time ago.
“We’d been in the approval mechanism for the last four months or so, but you’ve got all this sampling that goes with the licensing,” he said.
“The license agreement is issued but then you’ve got the conditions of the licensing agreement.
“As an example, the first part is you’ve got to go and get the samples and the samples have to be issued by Monster and they have a section that checks it all out.”
Unfortunately for fans, model cars are not part of the new agreement.
The team’s model car partner Authentic Collectibles was forced to cancel plans to sell replicas of Waters’ 2022 Gen2 Mustang when the Monster issue surfaced early last year.
Authentic subsequently produced models of Tickford’s Castrol, Snowy River and Tradie Beer Gen3 Mustangs in 2023, but no Monster cars.
“We’re not focused on the [model] cars at this point, it was more the merch we wanted to really get going,” said Nash.
“You’re constantly dealing with model car issues, with approvals. The OEM (Ford) has to also approve model cars, it’s just a totally different piece to what we term normal merch.
“We don’t know about Monster cars, we haven’t really put any focus on that, because it’s the merch that everyone really wants. We like the cars, but merch is the main focus.”
Tickford’s merchandising efforts at Sandown include its regular range for the #55 Thomas Randle entry and a limited run of retro Castrol caps and shirts to coincide with the car’s one-off livery.
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