23 replies to this topic

[Milan Fistonic]

I received these questions from a friend and thought there must be someone out there who knows the answers.

In 1962 Cooper had their famous white stripes, Lola arrived with the red
band around the nose but Lotus and BRM were both plain green, although very
different shades!
At some point, I think in early 1963, BRM appeared with an orange nose, and
Lotus with a yellow stripe - but why then? And did they both arrive with
their 'splash of colour' at the same race? And if so - was it 'pre arranged'
or coincidental? The orange came, I assume from the colour of the BRM
mechanics overalls and yellow was known to be CC's favourite colour. But
Lola/Bowmaker chose red - not because it would clash with BRM and Lotus
because neither of them had added another colour when Lola first turned up.
More questions:
When was the first Lotus victory in green and yellow livery?
When was the first BRM victory in green and orange livery??
Jack Brabham's Lotus 24 was plain green, but did all Brabham's have the bronze?

[Barry Boor]

Purely from the top of my head, here is my slant on these questions.

Lotus first ran, and won with a yellow stripe at Silverstone 1963.

BRM's orange appeared a little later (?) and I suppose their first win with it must have been late '63 or certainly Monaco 64. The orange nose co-incided with the introduction of the full monocoque chassis.

As to why.... I think it was just that there were so many green cars around, somebody at Lotus and BRM decided that a contrast colour was in order. I never quite understood why Jack painted that Lotus 25 apple green. Maybe someone else knows.

Occasionally, the bronze/gold on the Brabhams was not complete - Sliverstone '63 springs to mind, but I think if any Brabhams ever ran without the gold, it was simply because they had replaced the nose and there was no time to paint it.

The Bowmaker Lolas did indeed have a red nose band but don't forget, they were dark blue not green.

Of course, it was indeed Cooper who started the whole thing in 1959 with the white stripes but I think the variation in both shade of green and nose/stripe colour did a lot to aid long-distance identification and brighten up the fields in the early 1960s.

[Rob G]

One thing that certainly brightened the field was the Brabham in its first year, 1962. Instead of green, it was a bright turquoise blue with the usual bronze-colored treatment.

[Rob29]

Originally posted by Barry Boor


The Bowmaker Lolas did indeed have a red nose band but don't forget, they were dark blue not green.

Not dark blue,a la Rob Walker but a blueish Green.First seen on Yeoman Credit Coopers Snetterton Mar 24 1961. Last seen on Reg Parnell Racing Lotus 25 1967.

[David McKinney]

"Dark turquoise blue" is the way I describe it
(You had to be there)

[Barry Boor]

(You had to be there)

And even then..... In my early-teens, naive mind, I just could NOT accept that those Coopers, then Lolas, being British, were not actually green.

It took until a couple of years ago when I had some e-correspondence with one of the Samengo-Turner family, that I finally accepted that my eyes DID deceive me and the cars really were BLUE.....-ISH.

Then I bought a Brumm Cooper T.53 last year and blue it DEFINITELY is.

[Milan Fistonic]

Barry

You are right about Silverstone 1963 as the first time Lotus ran with the yellow stripe.

From Grant-Brabham's Lotus book.

At Siverstone [1963], ... Team Lotus's cars appeared with a flattering yellow stripe on the British racing green background. The new colour scheme came about as a result of the styling used at Indianapolis which had brightened up the Lotus entries against the jazzier American designs.

[David McKinney]

Barry,
I'll have to get you to have a word with Ted Rollason, who has one of the ex-Bowmaker Cooper T53s. When he bought it a year or so back the colour was near-as-dammit the correct shade, but he was convinced it should be green - and went so far as to respray the body.

[Roger Clark]

BRM first appeared with the orange nose at the French Grand Prix. Their first win in these colours was the USGP later that year. The monocoque first appeared at Zandvoort (practice only) without the orange nose. Orange was, I believe, the corporate colour of Rubery Owen.

Team Lotus had, of course, been green and yellow for many years; it was just the thick stripe on the centre line that was new.

[Doug Nye]

Roger is quite right regarding BRM's use of the coloured nose band, but while Rubery Owen used orange as part of their corporate colour scheme, the nose bands on the race cars were a really vivid dayglo orange variant. Neither were BRMs, of course, simply dark green. They were sprayed - by the Bourne undertaker - in a metallescent shade known as 'Dark Lust. Green' - Lust. being in this case short for 'Lustrous', a shade originally chosen because it was less prone to showing up mechanics' grubby fingerprints than the original pale green, and then the intermediate metallic pale green of the V16s.

The dayglo orange nose colour is very difficult to find these days - EU regs banning use of some horribly toxic agent in the mix perhaps? - and restorers now buy a super-costly German paint as offering the closest modern comparison. It's a little too carmine, too violent, towards the Marlboro-McLaren dayglo shade...but in period it was a definite dayglo orange. Remember that Richie Ginther's car often ran with a white nose band as opposed to Graham Hill's orange, by the way.

Lotus's yellow central stripe was indeed adopted at the 1963 British GP.

The Bowmaker blue was a dark shade but not as densely pigmented as Rob Walker's celebrated Midnight Blue or Scots Blue. But I would never describe the Bowmaker nose colour as merely red - it was a dark cherry-red going on maroon or wine coloured - to my taste a beautiful combination.

The Brabham brand of BRG was a particularly rich shade, which contrasted beautifully with the Oz band and nose surround in gold (NOT bronze).

But the great livery to me was Ferrari's during the period when they adopted Maranello Concessionaires' style Cambridge blue on their wheels. Ooohhh, time for the cold shower.

And on '60s colour schemes, it's a digression into sports and GT cars, the Maranello Concessionaires colours were officially Rosso Corsa racing red with Cambridge Blue - pale-blue - centre band, nose flash and sometimes tail transom. But when the team's new Dino 206S was delivered direct from the factory to the Nurburgring 1,000Kms the helpful factory had sprayed it in their own rendition of Cambridge Blue - a nasty kind of deep sky blue which clashed with the red rather than augmented it. The car was resprayed the right shade when Colonel Hoare's blokes got it back to Blighty. Then at Le Mans '66 their new GTB/C arrived direct from the works for Courage and Pike to run in the GT Category. And it too had been given Maranello Cambridge Blue, that nasty dark stripe, broadening into the flash ontoppadanose .... but the valance beneath the nose/bumper line left Rosso Corsa, without the blue. It was not a happy combination. The car also ran in the race with the right-side front tyre white-walled for recognition.

Now, if one sees a colour pic of the Dino at the 'Ring or the GTB/C at Le Mans the instant reaction is "Duff colour pic - the blue's all gone to pot!". Well don't blame the colour pic - the real blame lay with Ferrari. And the GTB/C today is painted in 'proper' Cambridge blue with the centre stripe and the complete nose surround, taking in the valance beneath the aperture as well. It looks lovely - it's just NOT the way the car ran when it won the GT Category at Le Mans, because the right livery, the right colours, just look WRONG!

DCN

[Bernd]

Here's an interesting question. When the colour splashes appeared did it set off the purists? Did they start complaining that it was ruining the cars etc similar to how modern fans whinge about the Marlboro red Ferrari's

[Milan Fistonic]

It didn't appear to worry DSJ. His report on the British GP mentions the orange nose bands on the BRMs as being an aid to recognition and he describes Clark's car as "the green Lotus with its wide yellow stripe." No condemnation of the change at all.

[Bernd]

Jenks imo was never one to be stuck in the past, if he saw something that improved the spectacle he was all for it. I wouldn't of expected him to have a problem with it but that can't be said of some others at the time.
From memory Jenks first vocal objections were with Fag Packet Livery & corporate deals which he saw as nonsense that got in the way of the racing and diminished the sport. How right he was.

[Doug Nye]

Bernd - spot on re DSJ. My recollection of the time when F1 teams began adding more colour to their cars is of immense interest and approval. But I was 17-18 at the time and early in my model making career and it did make for very much more handsome models.

DCN

[Vicuna]

So what was the ruling up to the point where Chapman found the loophole to run the Gold Leaf colours?

Was Rob Walker allowed to run dark blue (even though there was no official Scottish racing colours) because he was a privateer? But what about the Bowmaker Lola's? If they could run in dark blue, what was to stop, in the period of say 62-67, a notional situation where Matra were commissioned by a French 'sponsor' to build F1 CARS. If that 'notional' French sponsor's
corporate colours were green, then conceivably the car could have been in BRG, not French racing blue!

Is this right??

[Barry Boor]

Not having access to the FIA Yellow Books from that period, I could not say for certain when or indeed if, the rules regarding colours changed. However, I suspect that after about 1960 it became a self-imposed regulation to paint your cars in their correct national colours. If you didn't, I doubt anyone would have refused to let you run.

As well as Rob Walker, you could say that technically, Scarab were among the first to flout national colours because although their cars WERE white and blue, it was hardly the white with blue stripe/s that was officially listed as the U.S. racing colours.

When the first Brabham appeared I remember trying to find out if this pretty blue and gold was officially the Australian colours!!!

Once the money started to roll in from non-trade sponsors, the days of national colours were effectively ended, (unless you were Italian, Japanese or French!)

[ensign14]

And, at a guess, there were more non-green British cars than green in the 1920s/30s? Even internationally there was Dick Seaman's black Delage.

Nearer the 1860s than 1960s, but how did Italy pinch the original US racing colour of red? And on another thread there was mention of racing colours of Madagascar - which Malagasy drivers raced (and no you cannot have Jo Schlesser) outside Madagascar (I have a map somewhere of the Antananarivo circuit, but nothing about race records)

[Mike Argetsinger]

Originally posted by Barry Boor

As well as Rob Walker, you could say that technically, Scarab were among the first to flout national colours because although their cars WERE white and blue, it was hardly the white with blue stripe/s that was officially listed as the U.S. racing colours.

Hmmm. Barry you are absolutely the last person one should ever doubt regarding car colours . . . but -- I was not aware that it was ever officially listed for the U.S. as white with blue stripes. It was my impression that the colours were just listed as white and blue. Cunningham made their famous interpretation of this with the blue stripes - and as it was appealing others followed suit. Scarab then had their own version. That was how I had always understood it - but as I said I am ready to acknowledge your superior insight on this point.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by ensign14
Even internationally there was Dick Seaman's black Delage.

Was it black in every race?
The reason I ask is that, about the same period, Whitney Straight was required to respray his cars for some international meetings - though whether it was in US or GB colours I can't recall

[Barry Boor]

The actual wording of the official racing colours was, IIRR, a little strange. Was the word UNDERFRAME not included in some colour schemes? Quite what this meant all those years ago, I cannot say but I am pretty sure the U.S. colours were officially white with blue underframe.

This eventually became transposed to white with blue stripe/s.

I am sure someone will rapidly correct me because again, I am pretty hazy but something tells me the white with blue stripes first appeared on Briggs Cunninghams entries at Le Mans, and was carried on from there.

A good example of the 'underframe' usage of colour I have always assumed, was the way B. Bira painted his cars.

Reading this post back, it is awfully vague but I'll post it anyway...

[Rob29]

Tne underframe was visable on most cars up until the thirties.I think we established in a previous thread,that enforcement of official colours was at organizers discreation.

[Doug Nye]

The late Stanley Sedgwick served as the Cunningham team's timekeeper. He explained once how Briggs read the international racing colour regs demanding white bodywork and blue underframe for the USA, and with his enveloping bodied cars (from 1951) he adopted his white livery with the twin longitudinal central stripes "to represent the hidden chassis frame underneath". It worked well, didn't it?

The Straight Maseratis in 1933 were predominantly white with the guv'nor's own '3011' sporting blue underframe and sometimes blue-spoked wheels. The Seaman Delage - which was a Seaman Equipe entry, nothing to do with Whitney Straight who had retired from racing upon his marriage, was jet black in every outing until RJB-S sold it to Prince Chula.

I am sure Barry is right - national colours reigned only as long as individual race organisers chose to enforce them. Normally the colour was intended to reflect the nationality of the driver, unless the cars were factory entries, when the colour was intended to reflect that of the factory. Private teams such as Centro Sud, for example, constantly re-sprayed their cars to reflect the rentadriver in charge that particular weekend - e.g. Gregory, Herrmann, etc. Private owners like Rosier (blue), Swaters (yellow) and Baird (green) ran their owner/driver national colours - Landi (glorious bright yellow and green for Brazil) - the Automovil Club Argentino (equally striking Argie blue and yellow).
There was always plenty of colour around before the relatively big privately sponsored teams began to emerge 1960-61 with either strange variations on the national colour or their own house colours. Under British RAC regulations, matched by those of many other ASNs, commercial advertising lettering upon competing cars were either banned entirely or strictly limited in size until 1967-68. And then of course it was for 1968 that the bans were lifted, after the big fuel companies had opted out of their previously crucial sponsorship programmes. The RAC still maintained a strict size limit on sponsorship lettering - but this was quickly, and quietly, forgotten...

DCN

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
The Straight Maseratis in 1933 were predominantly white with the guv'nor's own '3011' sporting blue underframe and sometimes blue-spoked wheels.

There was only one Straight Maserati in 1933
However, the 1934 team cars were indeed white and blue, until Straight resprayed his car black for the late-season British events.
And I didn't mean to suggest Seaman was still racing with Straight in 1936

[Doug Nye]

I stand gracefully corrected mate.