Motor Racing's True Colours

From it's earliest days in the Gordon Bennett races, international motor racing had a system of national colours.

In many post-WWII racing series, such as NASCAR, it was common to see cars painted in the colours of their sponsors, but up until 1968 the FIA banned cars under its jurisdiction from having sponsorship colours.

In that year, the ban was lifted, and Lotus boss Colin Chapman immediately took advantage of the change.

It was probably inevitable anyway, but it was Lotus cars that were the first in F1 to wear sponsorship colours. Chapman signed a deal with the John Player tobacco company, and his cars were painted first in the colours of the Gold Leaf brand, and then (more famously) in the black and gold livery of the John Player Special brand, see title photo showing the rather gorgeous Lotus 79.

Photo, left: Lotus 49 in Gold Leaf livery, this one driven by Graham Hill.

To a greater or lesser extent the other teams followed, and a fine tradition of racing cars being painted in national colours was all but swept away.

Here is an illustrated list showing some of the national colours. It is proof, if any were needed, that the past is another country, they do things differently there.

Sometimes they do them better.

United Kingdom / Great Britain

Colour: Green

Photo, left: Jim Clark winning the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix in a Lotus 25.

In 1901, Englishman Charles Jarrott went to France to collect a car from Panhard for the Paris-Berlin race. He had been allocated the unlucky number 13 in the race, and to offset that the factory had painted the car green, which is the lucky colour of France.

Jarrott may well have been the first British driver to race in a green car, but the first British

team to choose green was that entered in the 1903 Gordon Bennett race in Ireland. "Shamrock Green" was chosen as the team's colour as a gesture to the Irish, and later referred to as "British Racing Green."

Photo, right: Prodrive Aston Martin in racing green.

France

Colour: Blue

Photo, left: Jackie Stewart winning the 1968 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort in a Matra MS10. He was to win his first world title with Matra in 1969.

Blue was France's racing colour allocated for the Gordon Bennett races, and they have not changed it.

It might be observed that Renault F1 still honour tradition by having blue as the base colour of their cars, see photo at right.

Germany

Colour: White or Silver

Photo, left: 1908 Mercedes in white, here driven by Heikki Kovalainen. This car was Mercedes' first Grand Prix winner.

Germany's traditional racing colour was white, as it was for the Gordon Bennett races, and for some German teams it still is.

Photo, right: 1937 Mercedes W125 in silver.

In 1934, a Mercedes driver named Manfred von Brauchitsch was so desperate get his car down to the maximum allowed weight that his mechanics stripped the white paint off.

Other Mercedes drivers followed suit, racing their cars with bare aluminium bodywork, and the 'silver arrows' legend was born.

Photo, left: 1936 C type Auto Union

Mercedes' great German racing rival of the 1930's was Auto Union, who also adopted silver as their colour, and for the same reason that it saved a little weight.

The four-ring Auto Union badge symbolised the four manufacturers who had come together to form the company, one of which was Audi.

After WWII Auto Union was owned by Mercedes for a time, and was then sold to Volkswagen, who revived the Audi name for up-market versions of their road cars.

Photo, right: BMW M3 in race trim

BMW usually race factory cars cars in German white, sometimes also showing their corporate colour of blue.

Photo, left: BMW-Sauber F1 car, here driven by Jacques Villeneuve at his home Grand Prix. The livery is German white and BMW blue.

Japan

Colour: White with red 'sun' motif.

Photo, left: 1965 Honda RA272, this example on exhibition.

Honda were more successful as a constructor in the 1960s than they were in their latest incarnation. An RA272 driven by Richie Ginther won the Mexican Grand Prix for them in only their second season as a constructor.

It might be possible to see Toyota's 2008 F1 car (Photo, right) as harking back to an earlier era, but red and white are their current corporate colours.

Italy

Colour: Race Red, Rosso Corsa

Photo, left: Alfa Romeo 158

The Alfa 158, known as Alfetta (little Alfa), took podium positions 1-2-3 in the first ever F1 championship race, the European Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1950. With its successor the 159 it completely overshadowed other marques in the first two seasons of F1.

Alfa Romeo quit F1 at the end of 1951, but returned in 1979.

Photo, right: 1980 Alfa Romeo F1 car, basically still red but with Marlboro sponsorship.

After being taken over by Fiat in 1988 Alfa Romeo were pulled out of F1 for good.

Photo, left: John Surtees drives the 1964 Ferrari 158 with which he won the F1 World Championship.

The pure uncluttered lines of early F1 cars, and the lack of sponsorship logos, gave them a simple beauty we shall never see in F1 again.

United States of America

Colour: Blue and white. Usually, not always, one of the colours has been longitudinal stripes.

Photo, left: John Surtees drives the 1964 Ferrari 158 in his F1 World Championship-winning race at Watkins Glen.

In 1964, Enzo Ferrari was in dispute with the FIA over a sportscar issue, and when the Italian authorities refused to back him he declared that his cars would never again race in red, and renounced his Italian licence.

At Watkins Glen, Ferrari raced as North American Racing Team, and in the traditional blue and white American colours. That dispute with the FIA was eventually settled, but Ferrari pulled the same stunt in Mexico the next year, racing in US colours as NART so they could use Firestone tyres without breaking their contract with Dunlop.

Photo, right: 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe.

Carroll Shelby's beefed-up AC Cobra was quick enough to slay Jaguars and Ferrari's in sports car races of the Sixties.

That concludes this brief survey of motor racing national colours. Thanks for looking, God bless you.