Janson was born in New Zealand, emigrating to England at a young age. In 1967, he moved to Australia and settled in Melbourne.[2]
Janson, who listed his occupation as "Gentleman", established a playboy penthouse in the Federal Hotel before moving to the Hotel Windsor. In the 1980s he moved to Rutherglen House. Janson is renowned for the parties he throws, and was a pioneer in transforming the Melbourne Cup into a major event on the Australian social calendar.[3][4]
Motor racing
Janson raced a Holden Torana SS A9X from 1977 to 1979. (Car pictured in 2015)
He later scored a class win and fourth outright driving a BMW M3 with fellow Kiwi Trevor Crowe at the 1988 Bathurst 1000, though that class win wasn't without its trials. Unlike the ultra-fit triathlete Crowe, Janson wasn't all that into exercise, not to mention that he regularly smoked cigars, and unlike the lazy V8's and V12's he had raced previously at Bathurst, the 4-cylinder BMW required the driver to be a lot more on the ball physically and mentally. At one point late in the race before his minimum drive time was over, an exhausted Janson drove into the pits and "fell out of the car", though he was coaxed back out onto the track by the team (their position in class was safe) for a few more (slow) laps before handing over to Crowe to finish the race.[7]
Always a colourful character who gave his sponsors a plug at every opportunity, especially when being interviewed in the pits, Janson briefly changed his name by deed poll in the mid-1970s to NGK Janson to circumvent a CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sport) rule that only allowed a driver's name to be carried above the window line.[8] His former co-driver Larry Perkins also told that one year on a parade lap at Bathurst, Janson continually pulled the car off onto the grass in order to throw Cherry Ripe chocolate bars out to the crowd (his major sponsor being Cadbury Schweppes).
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New Zealander
