9 replies to this topic

[GiuseppeF1]

I know there are many great, informative threads on this forum regarding the origins of British Racing Green, but there’s a particular point id really appreciate any clarity and insights on please…

It’s well documented that British Racing Green was established at the 1903 Gordon Bennett race by the British Napier entries in deference to their Irish hosts, yet Selwyn Edge’s Napier entry for the 1902 race was already painted in green, before the formal establishment of the colour green as the official colour for British entrants… so;

1) Was Edge’s 1902 entry being painted in green simply a coincidence?

2) If cars had to be entered in/compete in the Gordon Bennet Cup under national colours, then why wasn’t there a formal declaration for a British national racing colour already in 1902, as there were 3 British entries for the 1902 race (half of the total 6 entries). Surely British cars constituting half of the total entries would have caused the organisers to insist on a formal British national colour already being ratified for the 1902 race?

3) For the other 2 British entries in the 1902 race, the two Wolseley cars driven by Montague Grahame-White and Arthur Callan, what colour cars did these 2 drivers race in the 1902 Cup if BRG was in only formally established a year later at the Irish GB race?


Thank you for your feedbacks, everyone -

Giuseppe F1

Edited by GiuseppeF1, 23 March 2025 - 18:29.

[a_tifoosi]

David Venables in 'Napier. The first to wear the green': "perhaps persuaded by Charles Jarrott that it was a lucky colour, the car was painted in a share of olive green, and so a great tradition was begun. It is not known how the exact shade was decided in 1902, but two years later, when Napiers moved to Acton, the doors and window-frames were painted with a shade of oliver green supplied by Carsons, a London paint manufacturer. Many years later Charlie Childs, who worked on the racing cars, said that when a car was ready for painting, a boy was sent to the stores to obtain a supply of the standard green factory paint, so the same paint sufficed for both factory buildings and racing cars".

 

I haven't been able to find any reference to the car colour in 'S.F. Edge: Maker of Motoring History' by Simon Fisher.

Edited by a_tifoosi, 23 March 2025 - 20:18.

[robert dick]

In 1901 and 1902 the colour of the cars representing the British club in the race for the Gordon Bennett Cup was red.

The Napier driven by Selwyn Edge in the 1901 Paris-Bordeaux was red. The Napier was initially entered in the Bennett race but finally started in the open race to Bordeaux because its English Dunlops were replaced by French Michelin tyres.

In 1902 Edge's Napier was again painted red, as well as Herbert Austin's Wolseley which initially was entered in the Bennett race and then started in the open race to Vienna because the English ignition coils were replaced by French ones.
 

[robert dick]

From Le Vélo/Paris, 20 May 1901: "... peintes en rouge":



and 25 June 1902: "... les voitures des Anglais en rouge":

 

[ensign14]

And a few years later the Grand Prix Austins were red - presumably the GP was eschewing the Gordon Bennett nationality.

 

Occam's razor suggests there are simply a cotchel of coincidences.  Jarrott persuaded green was a lucky colour, Napier using green as a corporate colour, and being able to sell to the Irish that Napier green was in their honour - note though that the tradition Irish colour is St Patrick's blue (as seen on the Royal coat of arms and many Dublin sports teams).

[Vitesse2]

As ever, Robert supplies some useful period sources. It's also worth reviewing this long-ago thread, which covered much of the same ground: https://forums.autos...h-racing-green/

 

This all of course pre-dates the founding of the AIACR in 1904, but even after it was formed it delegated sporting matters to the Commission Sportive of the AC de France, who retained responsibility for that until after the Great War. Robert's 1902 cutting seemingly references the fact that colours had been decided at a CS meeting, which presumably means that delegates from other national clubs were in attendance, even if only as observers. So maybe the answer to when BRG was formally adopted is somewhere in the minutes of an ACF CS meeting? Circumstantially, given the colours of the 1908 Austins (red) and 1912 Arrol-Johnstons (green and blue) it could even be later than 1908.

 

I've just found this picture of the Arrol-Johnston raced by Resta in the 1908 TT - it appears to be white!

 

[RCH]

The idea that BRG came about due to the Gordon Bennett race of 1903 being in Ireland has only appeared recently. When we had a trade stand at a historic meet at Donington we met a lovely chap called Len Butler. He had 3 Bentleys, 2 replicas and one genuine versions of the 1927 Le Mans team cars. The colour of the one car he had there was lighter olive green which he reckoned was the actual colour that Bentleys used. It was actually Parson's Napier Green which rather implies that Napier's olive green colour was/is the proper genuine British Racing Green.

[a_tifoosi]

In 1902 Edge's Napier was again painted red, as well as Herbert Austin's Wolseley which initially was entered in the Bennett race and then started in the open race to Vienna because the English ignition coils were replaced by French ones.

 

 

 

To be honest, I have never followed this topic in detail, but I am surprised about this statement. I had always understood/read that S.F. Edge's Napier in 1902 was olive green, not red!

• Napier. The first to wear green (David Venables): "some authorities have suggested that Napiers were not painted green until 1903, but Lord Montagu, in his book The Gordon Bennett Races, says that an eyewitness, Henry Knox, recalled the olive green colour of the 1902 car".
• The Gordon Bennett Races (Lord Montagu of Beaulieu): "the car was painted green —Mr Henry Knox remembers it as an olive shade, and it is possible that the colours was selected at the instigation of Charles Jarrott. The 40 hp Panhard driven by Jarrott in the 1901 Paris-Berlin race had been assigned the unlucky number 13, and Panhards sought to cancel the hoodoo by painting the car an equally unlucky colour - green. In spite of this Jarrott had finished tenth. Even in 1902, however, green as a colour was becoming associated with Napier touring cars. 
• British Racing Green (David Venables): [about the Gordon Bennett 1901] "when Jarrott went to the Panhard factory in Paris before the race he found that his car had the race number 13, but it was explained to him that it had been painted green, regarded as a lucky colour in France, to invalidate the baleful effect of the unlucky number. The combination seemed to be effective as Jarrott finished in 10th place, despite an off-road excursion when his riding mechanic was thrown from the car. The 1902 Gordon Bennett competition was run concurrently with the race from Paris to Vienna. Edge's Napier was one of the British entries, painted in an olive shade of green. It has been suggested that this was influenced by Jarrott, but many of the production touring cars from the Napier factory were painted green and this may also have been a factor".
• Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing (Charles Jarrott): [about the Paris-Berlin 1901] "about a week before the event I went over to Paris to obtain the car and prepare for the race. On entering the works, one of the first persons I met was M. Clément, and he very kindly conducted me to the shop which contained my car. (...) I noticed particularly that the car was painted green - a beautiful, rich, dark colour, which gave the car such a handsome appearance that I wondered why everybody else had not painted their cars green also. But M. Clément gave me a reason for this. He explained that my number in the race was 13, and the reason it had been alloted to me was because no one else would have it. But they had been struck with the happy idea of painting the car green (the French lucky colour) with the object of nullifying the bad effect of the unlucky number". In the Paris-Vienna 1902 chapter, I see no reference about S.F. Edge's Napier colour.

I know that I am missing many other sources —none of the above, indeed, is contemporary information. But could it be that the 'olive green' colour legend on S. F. Edge's 1902 Napier is simply based on the statement of 'Mr Knox', as included in Lord Montagu's book, who remembers it as an olive shade? This idea then being reproduced in the other books till today.

[ensign14]

So maybe the answer to when BRG was formally adopted is somewhere in the minutes of an ACF CS meeting? Circumstantially, given the colours of the 1908 Austins (red) and 1912 Arrol-Johnstons (green and blue) it could even be later than 1908.

 

I've just found this picture of the Arrol-Johnston raced by Resta in the 1908 TT - it appears to be white!

 

 

 

The three Renaults at one of the Grands Prix were red, white, and blue.  Plus there were some other cars with so little bodywork that the idea of a racing colour seems to be redundant.  I'm kind of of the view that it was all fairly ad hoc before about 1910; the Gordon Bennett colours seem to have varied per year as well.

[a_tifoosi]

Well, with the current on-line resources, it has not been very complicated to find a contemporary source confirming that Edge's Napier was red in 1902  :

 

 

From L'Auto, 26 June 1902.

Edited by a_tifoosi, 24 March 2025 - 13:17.