Redwood Cigarettes

In 1984’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Redwood introduced Redwood Juniors: candy cigarettes sold in packs of 20 and positioned to steer children toward the tobacco brand. Vice City carried the campaign on billboards and benches, using the line “Junior’s Gotta Start Sometime!” A giant pack replica also stood above Verdi Groceries in Little Havana.

A radio spot depicted children smoking the candy product. Its premise echoes a real Winston advertisement in which Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble promoted cigarettes. Redwood Juniors remained present in the HD-era company website.

No trailer timestamp, screenshot, or promotional placement identifies Redwood Cigarettes in Grand Theft Auto VI. Vice City is the company’s listed region, but this does not by itself document a GTA VI sign, store, product pack, vehicle livery, or other in-world appearance.

Redwood advertising appeared in San Andreas through roadside promotion and radio. Liberty City Stories named the brand in an Ammu-Nation radio commercial alongside Logger Beer. In Liberty City, the company had a website headed by a cowboy figure, while Chinatown Wars included a Redwood billboard in Cerveza Heights and Redwood-marked crates within the Chase Point Warehouse.

The company’s fictional past reaches at least to 1947. Its old advertising marketed smoking to children and placed the product in an episode of Moorehead Rides Again!. A vintage mascot used a red-faced Indigenous stereotype. Later imagery included a Sandy Shores billboard whose chief figure was reused in the branding for Redwood Gold.

Redwood Gold is a filtered variation promoted during Arena War as an alternative to vaping. Its campaign equated choosing gold filters with masculinity and used a revised Redwood wordmark paired with an Indigenous chief image. The older company colors—red, white, and yellow—also define its racing schemes, commonly arranged around a diagonal red side stripe.

Motorsport sponsorship extended to Redwood Lights Track, an off-road racing venue, and to the number 86 Bati Custom in The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. In later games, Redwood paint schemes were offered for the Bati 801RR, Elegy Retro Custom, Itali GTB Custom, Sultan RS, and Omnis; the Gauntlet also appeared in a ready-made Redwood version. GTA IV delivery Yankees could carry Redwood livery.

Redwood is principally modeled on Marlboro and Winston. Its lettering, color arrangement, and overall logo treatment resemble Winston, while several competition liveries draw from racing cars sponsored by Marlboro or Winston. The cowboy used on the Liberty City website also recalls Marlboro’s cowboy advertising.

Its name may refer to redwood trees. It has additionally been compared with Red Apple, the invented cigarette label repeatedly used in Quentin Tarantino films. Within Grand Theft Auto’s own product landscape, Logger Beer is a separate brand mentioned beside Redwood, rather than a cigarette competitor.