95 replies to this topic

[Jordi #99]

Let's talk about one of the things that doesn't really affect the performance of a car... the paint! (because if you painted a F2002 like a Minardi it would still be the best, right?)

Of course, before the "commercial" era cars were painted in the national colors. Of those, sure Germany's silver and the British Racing Green are legendary.... (wish Spain had built a car around then. A red and yellow car would have been nice!)

But of the modern era... for example:

-All the John Player Special liveries: Black is always imposing, and together with golden lettering, great cars and great drivers... (Maybe Arrows needed golden lettering in 1998!)

-The Rothmans livery: Since it first appeared in 1994, it always looked as one of the best done paintjobs... One of the best!

-Parmalat at Brabham-BMW: A winner too. The paint on the BT52 makes it look ten times more agressive, as if it was going to eat something.

-First Ligiers: It's only that the bleu looked great. Not as dark as in the latter times...

What do you think?

[Bladrian]

Of the 'pre-commercial' colours, surely you cannot leave aside Italian Red? The Ferraris, for example, were a 'proper' red back then - not this bullcrap pansywaist marlboro light-red that they are today ......

Of the modern colour schemes, I reckon West McLaren-Mercedes have it well over the rest.

[Jordi #99]

On the subject of Italian red, I was just waiting someone to tell me!

Now, that's certainly true. Ferrari's current color is Marlboro, not scarlet. The "rosso" is not too much "rosso" nowadays!

[David M. Kane]

My all time favorite was the Yardley-BRM, closely followed by the original
Hesketh-March. In fact, if I were to ever do a team scheme, it would be a
spinoff of the Hesketh scheme because the British colors are the same as the USA. In essence, I thought both schemes were very crisp and very clean.

[David Beard]

I like modern cars best naked, in plain carbon fibre.....

[RedFever]

I loved the Alfas red and the JPS Lotuses

Today Mac/West is very nice, I don't get the excitement about Rothmans, but respect it nevertheless

[McSlick]

Jordi #99

-The Rothmans livery: Since it first appeared in 1994, it always looked as one of the best done paintjobs... One of the best!

The Rothmans livery appeared a bit earlier than 1994 it was already their at the and of the 70s they were sponsoring a March
The colorscheme was yellow and blue

[Jordi #99]

Originally posted by McSlick

The Rothmans livery appeared a bit earlier than 1994 it was already their at the and of the 70s they were sponsoring a March
The colorscheme was yellow and blue

Do you have a picture?

[McSlick]

yes ive got a picture but ive got now way to post here

[fullcourseyellow]

I have something for green cars... I think the 7up Jordan 191 and the Benetton B186 are great

[Barry Boor]

To quote Jordi:

(wish Spain had built a car around then. A red and yellow car would have been nice!)

Jordi, your wish is my command:

[dretceterini]

There was a Gebhardt C-2 car that ran in 1984 or 1985 in a bright green with gold dragons down the side, sponsored by a gin-sing company. Another car that was interesting was the Rondeau that looked like it had a shirt draped over it which ran at Le Mans.

[McSlick]

A picture of the Rothmans March

[ehagar]

I would figure darker paint schemes would actually be heavier. I vaguely remember Jaguar trying a bunch of paint schemes prior to their first season, including the traditional British Racing Green. They settled on the current colour in part because they found BRG too heavy.

[rdrcr]

Schemes...

Of the current iterations, I think that McLaren has the most tasteful scheme going in light of sponsor demands.


JPS, a classic in any sense... the black paint with gold pinstripes and lettering was always a favorite of mine. The '82 season car was especially clean.


Another personal favorite was the yellow, while and black of Renault circa 1979


Going back a bit earlier, the Gold Leaf Lotus paint work was pretty stunning in that rich red and shimmering gold.


Otheres include:

The Brabham of '78


The Wolf-Ford of '77.


The 7up Jordan (for FCY)


What about non-F1?

The endurance and sports cars offered lots of canvas for some real creative work... Calder, Lichtenstein, and others really set those cars off...




Here is the site that I linked to: f1-legend.com

It has damn near ever iteration that has been done on most GP & F1 cars... I can't vouch for the authenticity but overall, it seems like a pretty good source.

[Ross Stonefeld]

The West-Mclaren is nice, espeically if you get a nice detailed shot showing all the air brush work. But my favs of 2002 are the Renault for using such vibrant colors, its almost like a cartoon; and the Toyota for using both an aysemetrical and artistic brush-stroke design.

[JohnS]

Originally posted by ehagar
I would figure darker paint schemes would actually be heavier. I vaguely remember Jaguar trying a bunch of paint schemes prior to their first season, including the traditional British Racing Green. They settled on the current colour in part because they found BRG too heavy.

You mean if they'd been a darker shade they would have been even slower?! The mind boggles!

[Felix Muelas]

Originally posted by Jordi #99
...wish Spain had built a car around then. A red and yellow car would have been nice!...

Spain´s colour scheme was this one...and not only one, but three Spanish drivers are recognizable in the picture...

Actually, it looks curiously similar to Barry´s...our all-time favourite paint-scheme without any doubt!

un abrazo

Felix

[Zawed]

The Jordan Peugeot of 1997, very different for its time and the Snake (then Hornets) theme set it aside from the rest. Made me me a fan of Jordan. The McLaren West scheme of the same year is well done. The Orange Arrows of the past few years is another one that caught my eye simply because it was different to the others.

[Barry Boor]

Isn't it funny how opinions differ?

Those Jordans with animals and insects on the noses rank, with the zipped B.A.R, as the worst liveries ever in F1 IMHO.

[fullcourseyellow]

Like Zawed, I also find the Orange Arrows very appealing

[Ross Stonefeld]

Yeah I dont like the animal jordans either. I thought the zipper BAR's were ugly as sin, but they were interesting from an imagination standpoint.

I too liked the ORange Arrows because it instantly stood out and it had good sponsor identification. You were thinking Orange (color) or Orange (telecom) no matter what you did when you looked at it.

[scheivlak]

talking 'bout orange: I loved that plain, bright shining orange of the McLaren M7A...

[dretceterini]

A lot of Carrera Panamericana cars had interesting paint schemes...

[Bruce Moxon]

McLaren Orange - remember a couple of years ago when McLaren unveiled their new car in the old orange? Looked great, I thought. I was hoping that was how they would run the cars.

I'm glad there was mention of 60s sports cars. How about the purple and green paisley job on the Porsche 917? Or the "crocodile" paint on the 1999 Audi at Adelaide? The Gulf Porsches and Fords looked good too. Orange again?

I too like the Gold Leaf scheme, especially on as elegant a car as the Lotus 49. And the Wolf also looked really good. I like understated schemes without too much signwriting. Therefore I think most of the modern cars look awful.

There are a couple of CART cars that look good. The Team Green green and silver looks so nice I'm stealing it for my club car.


Bruce Moxon

[William Dale Jr]

They were always good on F1 cars, but the BMW 635's and M3 that carried the JPS paint scheme over here looked absolutely stunning. Also, the original HSV Racing Team paintscheme from 1988 looked really nice on the big, TWR-spec Holden Commodores- better than what they used from 1989 onwards, IMO. And those Texaco-backed Eggenberger Ford Sierras, very striking in black and fluorescent (sp?) red. In V8 supercars over here, there's only one paintscheme that IMO really stands above the rest and that was the black and fluoro yellow scheme on the Allan-Moffat-run Cenovis Falcon.

Another Rothmans scheme always caught my eye - the one on the factory Porsche 956s in the mid-'80s. While on sportscars, the original paint on the TWR Jaguars, a simple BRG and white, looked very nice indeed.

[David M. Kane]

RDRCR/Richard:

Great job, that is a neat site, too bad my French isn't a little better.
Yes, the McLaren Orange is one of the all time great schemes...simple and to the point.

[Zakspeed85]

I love mostly all the Renault liveries, anything in red appeals to my eye including the 98 Williams with the Winfield livery...there is just so many that i would say appeals to me and hard to choose a favorite or best livery ever.

[2F-001]

Chaparral, (pre-2K).
;)

[2F-001]

A couple of simple, but distinctive (and memorable) schemes...

Sid Taylor Racing (white with thin-thick-thin green stripes and a clover leaf - or rather a shamrock I suppose)

Alan Mann (red with a gold side flash - in the manner of the green on Team Lotus Cortinas - later a gold roof or a stripe on the P68)

[2F-001]

Did anyone mention the Wyer-Gulf colours? They seem to be lots of folk's favourite... although I wonder how much of that is linked to them being associated with a successful team and charismatic cars?


O/T:
Just looking at the profile drawing drawings that Richard posted - the 'Bin Laden' Williams connection has been discussed to death, but what was the 'osama' on the Jordan? No link at all, I imagine, but just curious.

[byrkus]

I remember seeing in a book some most wonderful pics of BMW CSL and M1. I remember a CSL with 'milimeter mesh' on, and other with red/yellow/blue combination. Absolutelly stunning!

Oh yes, that 'crocodile' Audi R8 is IMHO the best car looking car (used in race) in last few years.

[dmj]

Originally posted by dretceterini
A lot of Carrera Panamericana cars had interesting paint schemes...

One of favorites:

[stuartbrs]

isnt it funny though, how an ugly car, sudenly looks beautiful once it starts to win races..

to my minds eye, those JPS cars are the most beautiful, although I thought the Lotus 72 looked better in Gold Leaf colours.

But the most beautiful of all, are the pre-sponsor cars...

Lotus 25
BRM`s with the dark green and orange noses
Orange McLarens
Red Ferraris

Monza 2001 Ferraris were spoiled though, by the black noses..but I remember thinking how nice it would be if they returned to the plain liveries in national colours

Worst colour scheme??, thankfully didnt happen... Michelin were talking about coloured tyres when they returned last year...ugh, how revolting, actually, how utterly and totally revolting that would have been, I mean, losing Spa is one thing, but coloured tyres are just plain wrong!!

[René de Boer]

One of my favourites in touring cars was the Sonax/Tabac-livery used on the Mercedes C-Class in the 1994 DTM (Roland Asch/Bernd Schneider), which was a very deep form of dark green, but also could change to a blueish colour or even towards black, depending on the angle from which you were looking at it. I also liked the silver-grey D2-scheme, and the Mobil design on Ellen Lohr's car in 1995/1996, where there was a very detailed painting of the engine on the bonnet, like you were looking through it.

But there have been some ugly Mercedes-designs in DTM, too, like the brown UPS-design in 1995/1996 and the yellow Promarkt-livery.

[Jordi #99]

Originally posted by Felix Muelas

Spain´s colour scheme was this one...and not only one, but three Spanish drivers are recognizable in the picture...

Actually, it looks curiously similar to Barry´s...our all-time favourite paint-scheme without any doubt!

un abrazo

Felix

But the Connew or the Maserati (Maserati, right?) aren't Spanish cars...

Anyway... Felix, I can't recognize any of the Spanish drivers in your picture....

(well, I'm only 17, and I'm here to learn!)

[DNQ]

Originally posted by rdrcr

Just wondering - you see pictures like this of f1 cars on many websites, obviously from the same author - any idea about the source of these drawings?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by DNQ

Just wondering - you see pictures like this of f1 cars on many websites, obviously from the same author - any idea about the source of these drawings?

Pierre Menard's "Great Encyclopedia of Formula 1".

Jordi 99: the thinner of the two men standing is Godia. I assume the other two are Jover and Fabregas , but I can't immediately pin down a portrait of either. It's at Albi in 1948 BTW.

[Vitesse2]

Yep - definitely Jover behind the wheel, although it's Godia's car. So, by elimination, the one in the sunglasses is Jean-Claude Fabregas.

How does a Spaniard come by the first name Jean-Claude anyway Felix? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this as there's a French driver called Jose .... is this a Basque thing perhaps?

[917]

Posted by Jordi #99:
...one of the things that doesn't really affect the performance of a car...

Many years ago I read an old issue of the Porsche magazine "Christophorus" from the mid- or end-50s. In his editorial the editor Richard von Frankenberg (racing driver and journalist) discussed the theory that some colours were faster than others, IIRC some people thought that a grey car would have less air restistance (I hope this is the right English word) than e.g. red or blue due to more graphite in the paint...

byrkus,

these were two of the BMW Art Cars, which you can find here:
http://www.bmwworld.com/artcars/
(Some of them were raced in Le Mans.)

Kind regards
Michael

[byrkus]

Cheers 917!! That's what I was looking for!!

And this is the scheme I'm talking about. In my eyes, pure beauty - both car AND scheme.

[Barry Boor]

A very nice car but I'm afraid the words 'mud', 'stick', 'the' and 'in' must apply to me because I find this colour scheme incredibly messy and unattractive.

Sorry, Byrkus.

[Pedro 917]

The Yardley cosmetics sponsored BRM's of the 1970 & 1971 season were very beautiful. I'm still waiting for some finished scale models of these lovely cars. I have a Western models kit and an old John Day too but that's all I've ever found.
Here are some pictures of BRM P160 chassis 001 raced by so many famous drivers (Rodriguez, Elford, Gethin, Beltoise, Regazzoni & Lauda) which was restored by Rob Hall in the late nineties. It belongs to American Nick Rini who races the car in the Historic F1 Championship. These pictures were taken at the Old Timer GP at the Nurburgring last summer. Motor Sport had an article on the car in its July 1999 number.





and here's Pedro Rodriguez during the Spanish GP 1971 but without the shovel nose

[Felix Muelas]

Originally posted by Vitesse2
Yep - definitely Jover behind the wheel, although it's Godia's car. So, by elimination, the one in the sunglasses is Jean-Claude Fabregas.

How does a Spaniard come by the first name Jean-Claude anyway Felix?

Well, actually we are shooting two birds with the same bullet, Richard!
Everybody perfectly identified by you but now the news : the name of the man with the sunglasses is Salvador not Jean-Claude.

This was originally pointed by Jimmy Piget and although at one time it was even discussable (as there was a brother to Salvador by the name of Juan hence making it just "possible" that a slight "frenchisation" of his name might have converted him into "Jean Claude", once this picture appeared it was obvious that the "Jean Claude" as shown in the Albi 48 Sheldon entry list was Salvador.

An extremelly interesting character, he made his debut by winning with an Amilcar in October 1925 a Cyclecar race and he was still winning in 1973, when he finished in first position the Veterans´Monte Carlo Rallye! From 1957 to 1985 -when he died- he was the chairman of the Real Automovil Club de Catalunya- and what Spain, and specially Catalunya, owes him is simply a lot.

un abrazo

Felix

Jordi : bienvenido!

PS : Richard, actually there is another colour picture that proves that the number of Maseratis painted in Spanish national colours for Albi 1948 was...four! To the three drivers already identified, we have to add César Apezteguía whilst I haven´t yet resolved the meaning of the name "Torrens" as alternative driver of the car number 22...
Finally, if we have to believe our local sources, it appears as very doubtful that the name of the Spanish Team at that moment might have been Scuderia Auto-Spagnola as Sheldon puts it, or even a corrected "Escuderia Auto-Española". Sounds increasingly probable that the name of the team was "Escuderia Corso " o "Corsa" what, in my humble opinion, doesn´t make a lot of sense either (but is supported by the authority of Javier del Arco and that is a serious one!)

[Bostromi]

If nothing else the 2001 Prost car had a nice look.

Per

[Jordi #99]

Gracias Felix!

Now that you mentioned Javier del Arco... I read his monthly column at F1 Racing... what a fountain of knowledge... Someone should tell him to come here, he'd be a great addition!

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Felix Muelas


Well, actually we are shooting two birds with the same bullet, Richard!
Everybody perfectly identified by you but now the news : the name of the man with the sunglasses is Salvador not Jean-Claude.

This was originally pointed by Jimmy Piget and although at one time it was even discussable (as there was a brother to Salvador by the name of Juan hence making it just "possible" that a slight "frenchisation" of his name might have converted him into "Jean Claude", once this picture appeared it was obvious that the "Jean Claude" as shown in the Albi 48 Sheldon entry list was Salvador.

An extremelly interesting character, he made his debut by winning with an Amilcar in October 1925 a Cyclecar race and he was still winning in 1973, when he finished in first position the Veterans´Monte Carlo Rallye! From 1957 to 1985 -when he died- he was the chairman of the Real Automovil Club de Catalunya- and what Spain, and specially Catalunya, owes him is simply a lot.

un abrazo

Felix

Jordi : bienvenido!

PS : Richard, actually there is another colour picture that proves that the number of Maseratis painted in Spanish national colours for Albi 1948 was...four! To the three drivers already identified, we have to add César Apezteguía whilst I haven´t yet resolved the meaning of the name "Torrens" as alternative driver of the car number 22...
Finally, if we have to believe our local sources, it appears as very doubtful that the name of the Spanish Team at that moment might have been Scuderia Auto-Spagnola as Sheldon puts it, or even a corrected "Escuderia Auto-Española". Sounds increasingly probable that the name of the team was "Escuderia Corso " o "Corsa" what, in my humble opinion, doesn´t make a lot of sense either (but is supported by the authority of Javier del Arco and that is a serious one!)

Er, so what was this fourth car numbered? And thanks for the steer on Fabregas - makes more sense now! "Auto-Spagnola" never really rang true either ....

[eldougo]

[Zawed]

Originally posted by Bostromi
I nothing else the 2001 Prost car had a nice look.

Per

Agree with you on that. The blue looks damn fine, shame about the performance!

[eldougo]

Now that a car the WOLF F1 lovely looking car an great colour .