92 replies to this topic

[Ross Stonefeld]

But the car behind is a March, isn't it? Why would that be in any way a reference to a correct or incorrect McLaren colour?

Forgive me if I have completely missed, or misinterpreted, some salient point of this!

 

I think I was confused by 

 

 

The McLaren has been repainted in something very close to the original as raced factory colour, whereas the car behind is more like the cars now resprayed and currently displayed in the modern McLaren collection, from where they feature on their stand at events like the Goodwood Festival.

 

 

Part of the problem is how unreliable that photo is. No judgement on the photographer or the equipment used but we could all stand in that same spot at the same time and get very different results depending on what we took the photo with. Now compare indoor vs outdoor, digital vs film, etc. 

[E1pix]

There are clues to the accuracy of the color, though — and my monitor's calibrated.

 

The "Gulf orange-red" looks pretty close to accurate, as does the Champion red. If I were to correct this image to make the McLaren color look proper (by adding more red to orange, if not also adding orange to yellow), the Gulf color would swing towards too red also.

 

I think Kayemod's point was that the "Papaya orange" wasn't right — and he was both there in the day, and pretty savvy with photos as well. I suspect the McLaren factory knows just what code the orange is, amazing to me that any owner wouldn't get it right. 

 

 

Edit: and in regards to Marlboro dayglo orange, it most certainly could be reproduced by Kodachrome film — if shot in overcast. Once digitized, it can be reproduced by taking blue and/or cyan from red.

Edited by E1pix, 08 June 2020 - 18:25.

[Ross Stonefeld]

But the camera may not be, and you'll almost never see a car run in the lighting conditions of that museum. For a start the paint is different shades just on the same car because of the lighting. Compare ahead of the front wheels to the area around the cockpit. Which area of the car most accurately represents the paint as it sits in the tin? 

[10kDA]

While we're on paint, as I recall Porsche Tangerine and Ford Grabber Orange ca. 1970 were very close matches to McLaren Orange and I believe intentionally so. The Team McLaren M6 in 1967 and the M8 in 1968 were the same shade of what we know as McLaren Orange, as stated by E1Pix, the color was different in '66, much "redder".

 

I was told by a Marlboro marketing type that the Day-Glo orange on Marlboro-sponsored cars was specifically formulated to PHOTOGRAPH as a flat, featureless field of that specific shade of red which appears in ink on a Marlboro cigarette pack (... or box). This worked as intended with Kodak and Fuji print film and Kodachrome, and though I shot Ektachrome back in the day I don't remember shooting any day-glo cars with it. Intentionally or not, this also worked on the STP sponsored Wildcats. I remember being surprised at the day-glo strips along the the cockpit sides and sidepods and literally seeing Red when I got my prints back, just like the photos as published in the magazines of those cars.

[10kDA]

 

Edit: and in regards to Marlboro dayglo orange, it most certainly could be reproduced by Kodachrome film — if shot in overcast. Once digitized, it can be reproduced by taking blue and/or cyan from red.

Yes, the only time I got an orange-y look was in overcast on Kodachrome and once in deep dark noonday shade under the trees at Elkhart Lake with most of the ambient light reflected off a white trailer.

[E1pix]

That Marlboro rep quote makes perfect sense. I, too was shocked in 1976 when first seeing Hunt and Mass' M23s after some time looking at book photos when Emmo drove the cars... same with the STP cars, including McRae in F5000 back in 1972!

 

Perhaps a bit surprised no color separators in the day figured out how to make the red more dayglo.

 

But the camera may not be, and you'll almost never see a car run in the lighting conditions of that museum. For a start the paint is different shades just on the same car because of the lighting. Compare ahead of the front wheels to the area around the cockpit. Which area of the car most accurately represents the paint as it sits in the tin? 

None of them, as the color isn't proper Papaya orange — and the image is flashed, and likely taken under fluorescent (green) lighting.

 

It doesn't matter (to my eyes) if the lighting isn't of an outdoor type. I am talking about its color relative to the others (and I've corrected tens of thousands of images from Fujichrome, Kodachrome, and digital, so ask for your trust on this). 

[kayemod]

On my photo of the M8 in the Louwman Museum, I'd agree it's slightly too yellow, but not very much. It was taken with available light, which wasn't all that great, no windows, strip lighting and a hand held exposure, 1/30th at f5.6, probably something like ISO1600, Nikon D7200 Nikkor 16-80 f2.8 lens if anyone's interested. I haven't done any correction, but I don't think it needed very much. My memories of that era McLarens in the flesh, are that they were a distinctly yellow orange, that photo really isn't that far out. The pigment used in making the fibreglass bodies was always the same, Rylands Traffic Yellow, and that's not not Traffic Orange. And any paint used on exposed monocoques etc, was specially formulated to match the moulded bodies, which McLaren never painted. The paint was made specially by 3M, and I don't think they made it for anyone else, the shade was unique to pigment manufacturers Rylands, and it's not a British Standard colour. We can keep on arguing whether the cars were a yellowy orange or an orangey yellow, but they very definitely weren't an orangey orange like that MARCH in the background. That's only relevant in that it gave me an opportunity to make a comparison with the orangey orange that McLaren's restored cars are now all painted with.

 

Referring to McLaren cars in post factory ownership is dangerous. I doubt if many have original bodywork, and if they do and haven't been painted, that colour tends to fade considerably with long exposure to sunlight. I'd be very surprised if there's much original  unpainted or unrestored 1970s fibreglass around anywhere today.

 

On the Ron Dennis treatment of their preserved orange cars, I think that changing the colour is a shame, but I understand why he had it done. No criticism, I have great respect for Ron, and over the period he was active, I think his overall contribution to F1 in particular, was almost on a par with Bernie's, he led the way in areas like preparation standards and presentation generally, and made other teams raise their game.

[Myhinpaa]

Some of the background of how the colour came about : http://web.archive.o...aren_orange.htm

 

McLaren's current entry which leaves all that out, but there's a good photo in the article of Hulme at Monaco in '69 that shows the shade pretty accurately (?)

[Duc-Man]

 

Denny Hulme in the front in the very same car that is now in the Louwman museum at the Nürburgring 1990 followed by Chales Agg. I was only using Fuji slide film at the time and the scan represents the paper copy perfectly.

Hulme is driving the original M8F of Peter Revson.

Here a shot from a year later with Agg and Hulme at the end of the grid. Here you can see that Agg's car ( on the left) has a much more orange colour then Hulme's:

 

Edited by Duc-Man, 09 June 2020 - 11:27.

[Nigel Beresford]

That recent McLaren article is worthless. For a start, the first appearance in F1 was on Denny's M5A in the 1968 SAGP, not at the RoC, and as has been recounted countless times, it was never ever known at Colnbrook as 'Papaya', but 'McLaren Orange' as related in the linked article from McLaren Automotive where Tyler mentions it.

 

As for "Gulf Orange", that was the nickname of one of the van drivers, not a colour used to paint the whole car. The "papaya"  thing was a description used by an author which caught on with fanboys and ill informed McLaren website copywriters. 

 

As for the history in relation to Specialsed,  Kayemod has recounted it here plenty of times.

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 09 June 2020 - 12:04.

[kayemod]

That recent McLaren article is worthless. For a start, the first appearance in F1 was on Denny's M5A in the 1968 SAGP, not at the RoC, and as has been recounted countless times, it was never ever known at Colnbrook as 'Papaya', but 'McLaren Orange' as related in the linked article from McLaren Automotive where Tyler mentions it.

 

As for "Gulf Orange", that was the nickname of one of the van drivers, not a colour used to paint the whole car. The "papaya"  thing was a description used by an author which caught on with fanboys and ill informed McLaren website copywriters. 

 

As for the history in relation to Specialsed,  Kayemod has recounted it here plenty of times.

 

 

Where do they find these people? That McLaren website piece is even worse than you think Nigel.

 

As far as I know, Paul Hawkins raced two Lola T70s, a red coupé, and an orange spyder. The orange car bodywork was a colour known as Tangerine, nothing at all like the McLarens which were Traffic Yellow, both standard colours still sold by the pigment manufacturer today. As for Pete Jackson mixing two pigments to achieve a shade to Bruce's liking, utter bollocks!!! Pigments were never, ever mixed. Maybe the manufacturer could do this for customers on request, but no pigments were never mixed at SM, you're virtually guaranteed a streaky finished moulding, the colours separate during the moulding process. As tor Pete doing the mixing, not a chance, he did possess real practical skills, but as far as I could see, none of them related to working with fibreglass. In a former life he'd been a carpet fitter, and a very good one at that, he carpeted the entire interior of the first Lola T70 coupé Racing Car Show car, as a favour for Eric Broadley. Otherwise, stirring his tea was about as far as Pete would ever get. The practical one of the two was brother Dave, who was the Specialised Mouldings technical expert, he could do almost anything GRP related, and he taught me a lot. Dave told me that Bruce did indeed see another SM customer's Lola, and liked the colour, deciding on that for his own production, but as I said, it was a standard Rylands pigment that's still in their range today, Traffic Yellow. Dave told me that the customer Lola that Bruce liked belonged to Hugh Dibley, but I have my doubts about that, I  don't remember Hugh ever having an orange car.

[E1pix]

My use of "Papaya orange" was meant as a common color description, such as one would use to describe Apple green.

 

Sincerely,

Nada Fanboy 

[kayemod]

My use of "Papaya orange" was meant as a common color description, such as one would use to describe Apple green.

 

 

There's no harm in that, it's become a popular description, but it's unofficial as Nigel says, I suspect that few people in this Country know what a papaya is. I'm pretty sure that some writer was the first to coin it, I suspect Pete Lyons, but our friend Doug thinks it may have been him, To call the colour Gulf Orange on the other hand is just plain wrong, I doubt if anyone at McLaren used that term, the cars were that colour first, and the fact that it tied in with the house colour of a subsequent sponsor was just plain coincidence.

[E1pix]

The "Gulf orange" I referred to is the color on the Gulf logo sticker, used in the same context as my reference to Champion (spark plug) red on the Champion decal.

 

Edit: I would also submit, only from memory, that the Gulf color is quite a bit less red than the '66 color on that year's Can-Am car.

Edited by E1pix, 09 June 2020 - 15:58.

[Nigel Beresford]

 in My use of "Papaya orange" was meant as a common color description, such as one would use to describe Apple green.

 

Sincerely,

Nada Fanboy 

 

Absolutely. Pls don't take my dig at the vacuous tripe trotted out these days in articles by people or organisations who can't be bothered to research their topic properly as directed at anyone here. 

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 09 June 2020 - 16:32.

[Tom Glowacki]

Absolutely. Pls don't take my dig at the vacuous tripe trotted out these days in articles by people or organisations who can't be bothered to research their topic properly as directed at anyone here. 

One of my other bad habits is to build model airplanes.  There used to be, and sometimes still are, debates about this or that hobby paint manufacturer is closer to, or farther away from, some other hobby paint manufacturer in reproducing some WW II camoflauge color.  At least on one of the main message boards, those arguments were put to rest by a retired Smithsonian Air and Space curator whose expertise covered this very subject.  He pointed out that what you see in some ancient WWII color picture is a function of the contemporary lighting conditions, weathering effects, the sensitivity of the film used to different areas of the color spectrum, the tendency of the film to color shift over time, and the documented vagaries of the Pentagon's paint procurement system.  In short, if the 2020 color is anywhere near the 1940's picture, don't get your undies in a bundle over it not being an exactly, perfect match.

[D-Type]

Model makers painting a model with original paint are actually getting it wrong.  If you were to paint car and model at the same time with the same paint (primer and all) if you puty the model on the real car's bonnet the colour and shine would be identical.  Now, take the model and walk across the street and hold it at arm's length.  The two would be more or less the same size,  But they would appear to be different colours -I don'tnknow how they would differ but they would.  And the model would appear to be shinier.  The best a modeller can do is get it "near enough" and make sure that all models that should be the same colour are the same colour.  The last comment also applies to 1:1 models - have you ever seen a gathering of supposedly same-coloured restored cars:  "Ecurie Ecosse" cars, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Bugattis, or anything. 
And that's not even mentioning metallic paints.  The metal particles should be 43 times smaller on a model to get the right effect.

Edit:  This was posted in parallel with Tom Glowacki's post above.  He has put the issue very succinctly

Edited by D-Type, 09 June 2020 - 22:15.

[E1pix]

Absolutely. Pls don't take my dig at the vacuous tripe trotted out these days in articles by people or organisations who can't be bothered to research their topic properly as directed at anyone here. 

 

Thanks Nigel, no worries at all. 

[Doug Nye]

...as has been recounted countless times, it was never ever known at Colnbrook as 'Papaya', but 'McLaren Orange' as related in the linked article from McLaren Automotive where Tyler mentions it.

 

 

 

This is simply not the case.  

 

Teddy Mayer specifically used the term 'Papaya' when describing the colour to me.  

 

We were seated in Bruce's office at Colnbrook at the time.  I had no idea what a 'Papaya' was - assuming that while it might be something common amongst wealthy preppy Americans it would be something outside the orbit of a council house kid from Guildford.  I consequently had to look it up when I got home.  Hence his reference surviving as a most vivid memory.  Whatever shop floor opinion might have been, up on the first floor the term 'Papaya' WAS used at Colnbrook.  

 

DCN

[Tom Glowacki]

Model makers painting a model with original paint are actually getting it wrong.  If you were to paint car and model at the same time with the same paint (primer and all) if you puty the model on the real car's bonnet the colour and shine would be identical.  Now, take the model and walk across the street and hold it at arm's length.  The two would be more or less the same size,  But they would appear to be different colours -I don'tnknow how they would differ but they would.  And the model would appear to be shinier.  The best a modeller can do is get it "near enough" and make sure that all models that should be the same colour are the same colour.  The last comment also applies to 1:1 models - have you ever seen a gathering of supposedly same-coloured restored cars:  "Ecurie Ecosse" cars, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Bugattis, or anything. 
And that's not even mentioning metallic paints.  The metal particles should be 43 times smaller on a model to get the right effect.

 

That is what is called "scale effect", the colors (the colours) wash out over distance and so the smaller the scale model, the lighter the colors should be to represent the prototype as seen at a distance when it is as small as the model.  There is that, the effect of sun on different pigments, the underlying surface and etc., etc.  I also seem to recall Classic Team Lotus discovering multiple shades of red over various GLTL cars.

[E1pix]

I just killed half an hour reading about this — out of part interest and part disbelief.

 

Far more of what I read disputed the theory or phenomenon in terms of colors actually "changing" from lighting over (short) distances. Yet some compared it to distant colors getting bluer, such as in nature, and I don't believe that correlation for a minute. Now, comparing a small model in hand compared to a jumbo jet a mile away, I can believe it for the great distance "screening back" the color's impact, and already a slight "blueing" of all colors as some colors scatter differently than others over great distances.

 

Other comments I read were about the scale effect method, adding black or white to a color to offset the "change." I can unequivocally say that color isn't that simple, whatever color is dominant in a mix is the only one to properly alter in such a case as this. 

 

Now I want to test it. But I doubt I ever will, in practical terms. My brief read seemed to show that the pro modelers neither believed, nor used it... but the metalflake size reference above is clearly dead on and understandable! But not one to dispute a phenomenon I've not experienced, now I want to see this theory for myself.

 

Anyone got a M8F model and the real thing to compare? 

 

 

Color plays tricks, and I suspect this is one. One thing I do know is colors can appear to an untrained eye as more intense the closer they are to the eye, size not part of that equation but only being fooled. I'm now curious if I could be, after a lifetime of working with color.

 

One trick is viewing the same color against white vs. black. To my (long-trained) eye they look the same, when I was starting out definitely not. Take a dark color, for instance, it appears ever-darker the lighter the background is compared to when it's on white, and vice-versa. On my sign work and especially on my pinstriping, it was common for me to mix a hair of the background color in the paint. Even with a gray paint, say, a little blue in it on a blue car for example and the color just "looked right." I did the same with white paints, and to some degree with all colors. If I sought "color contrast," I did the exact opposite.

 

I am still half-tempted to carry my paint kit and seek out race cars to do as original, but honestly I'm unconvinced the average race car owner gives a damn anymore. I'd do the lettering patterns in Illustrator to hand-paint everything, then output the same art on vinyl so the customer has backup once I leave the job site.

 

But I digress........   

[kayemod]

That is what is called "scale effect", the colors (the colours) wash out over distance and so the smaller the scale model, the lighter the colors should be to represent the prototype as seen at a distance when it is as small as the model.  There is that, the effect of sun on different pigments, the underlying surface and etc., etc.  I also seem to recall Classic Team Lotus discovering multiple shades of red over various GLTL cars.

 

 

I don't think that's quite correct with "scale effect", though modellers might use that term. In the wider world, it's known as "colour perspective", the further away from an object you are, the less colour you see. If you view a typical tree close up, the trunk in most cases is brown, and the leaves are green. Move away a couple of hundred yards, and the colours are less easy to distinguish, and if the tree is small on the horizon or in the distance, it looks almost black, a silhouette, so colour perception lessens with distance. Much of my model involvement has been with flying model planes, and working model boats. In many cases even very well built and painted models can look too bright and even lurid, if painted with the same paint as the full size example. If you look at a model of an 18th scale car from say, 6 feet away, for true scale accuracy, you are looking at it from 108 feet away. The fading colour effect will be small in that case, but the same paint as the full size car will look ever so slightly too vivid, and of course the effect will be much more pronounced with a 1/100th or 1/250th scale model ship viewed from a close distance. In such cases, modellers will often apply a light coat of a neutralising spray to tone down colours and make the model appear more realistic.

[Nigel Beresford]

This is simply not the case.  
 
Teddy Mayer specifically used the term 'Papaya' when describing the colour to me.  
 
We were seated in Bruce's office at Colnbrook at the time.  I had no idea what a 'Papaya' was - assuming that while it might be something common amongst wealthy preppy Americans it would be something outside the orbit of a council house kid from Guildford.  I consequently had to look it up when I got home.  Hence his reference surviving as a most vivid memory.  Whatever shop floor opinion might have been, up on the first floor the term 'Papaya' WAS used at Colnbrook.  
 
DCN

Nice recollection. Notwithstanding that, the paint was known as McLaren Orange. It came in cans marked “McLaren Orange”. Nobody called it anything other than McLaren Orange, not even the Kiwis who probably actually knew what a papaya is. Nevertheless it’s nice that Teddy chose to hand you an opportunity to gen up on tropical fruits. He taught me a lot too over the years.

[Tom Glowacki]

I don't think that's quite correct with "scale effect", though modellers might use that term. In the wider world, it's known as "colour perspective", the further away from an object you are, the less colour you see. If you view a typical tree close up, the trunk in most cases is brown, and the leaves are green. Move away a couple of hundred yards, and the colours are less easy to distinguish, and if the tree is small on the horizon or in the distance, it looks almost black, a silhouette, so colour perception lessens with distance. Much of my model involvement has been with flying model planes, and working model boats. In many cases even very well built and painted models can look too bright and even lurid, if painted with the same paint as the full size example. If you look at a model of an 18th scale car from say, 6 feet away, for true scale accuracy, you are looking at it from 108 feet away. The fading colour effect will be small in that case, but the same paint as the full size car will look ever so slightly too vivid, and of course the effect will be much more pronounced with a 1/100th or 1/250th scale model ship viewed from a close distance. In such cases, modellers will often apply a light coat of a neutralising spray to tone down colours and make the model appear more realistic.

Nice article on "scale effect" here:

 

http://leavenworthmo...considerations/

[Doug Nye]

Fruit effect?

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 10 June 2020 - 08:18.

[Catalina Park]

Fruit effect?

 

DCN

Pity the pawpaw historian.

[Allan Lupton]

Pity the pawpaw historian.

Quite so, as when I was a colonial, we had pawpaws that were pink-fleshed, rather than orange.

[kayemod]

Nice article on "scale effect" here:

 

http://leavenworthmo...considerations/

 

 

That's an interesting article, it explains the scale effect/colour perspective phenomenon very well.

[kyle936]

It's ironic that Fernando Alonso failed to qualify for last year's Indy 500 after he wrecked his race car in qualifying and the spare wasn't available because it was at a paint shop being repainted. It had been painted (by Carlin, who supplied the car) in the 'wrong' shade of McLaren Orange - more a sort of 'flame orange' than 'papaya', apparently - so McLaren had insisted (over a month before) that it should be repainted. Consequently the team lost almost two days.

 

The Carlin spare was in a paint shop 30 minutes from the track, more than a month after McLaren complained about the color, and it ultimately cost McLaren almost two full days of track time. The team looked foolish as other teams were able to move into backup cars in mere hours; James Hinchcliffe crashed in Saturday qualifying and was back on track in his spare that afternoon.

https://wtf1.com/pos...t-the-indy-500/

 

 

The photos (from the article linked to above) are the contemporary 'correct/wrong' shade - the 'wrong' shade, as explained above, never made it to the track.

 

 

 So basically, from what has been revealed in this thread, the spare had been painted in the wrong shade of the wrong shade of McLaren Orange!

[Charlieman]

The orange car bodywork was a colour known as Tangerine, nothing at all like the McLarens which were Traffic Yellow, both standard colours still sold by the pigment manufacturer today. As for Pete Jackson mixing two pigments to achieve a shade to Bruce's liking, utter bollocks!!! Pigments were never, ever mixed. Maybe the manufacturer could do this for customers on request, but no pigments were never mixed at SM, you're virtually guaranteed a streaky finished moulding, the colours separate during the moulding process.

Thanks for this. If constructing a wheel arch in a female mould, for example, there would be one or two layers of gelcoat containing the pigment followed by glass mat and rovings and a neutral coloured plastic? I presume that the process was imperfect and that the outer layer required touching up occasionally? Repair work for workshop accidents?

[ixlr8nz]

I think the problem with the mclaren orange from say 68-72, is that its not the same paint code used on all the cars. Maybe customer cars were a slightly different colour?

As a modeller, I notice a lot of people accept Tamiya Ts56 brilliant orange as the correct colour, however I think its too yellow and also not bright enough. I know that makes little sense, but if you look at some photos, the car can really glow especially in modern pics, almost like its somewhat fluroesent. I probably trust modern day photos the most, but who knows if the paint is identical to the original. A good example is the mclaren m8a-2. It can look quite different in photos even though all the photos are modern day.

Regards, Mike

[B Squared]

Only posting what McLaren Orange was called in one article in the Nov. 1968 issue of Road & Track by Al Bochroch reporting on the opening round of the Can-Am at Elkhart Lake on page 108:

 

"While the new McLaren M8A remains a rich butterscotch yellow, it's almost completely a new car."

[E1pix]

Not to dis’ Al, but the only correlation between butterscotch and McLaren orange is that one is healthy, and the other is junk food.

[10kDA]

Kayemod has referenced Traffic Yellow as the paint color name. I did a quick search of "Traffic Yellow" which returned these links, among others:

 

https://www.color-na...ellow-ral.color

 

https://www.paintcol...assic/1023.html

 

https://www.ralcolor...-traffic-yellow

 

At this link the Traffic Yellow labelled "25% saturated" looks closest:

 

https://encycolorpedia.com/f7b500

 

Even given the shortcomings of my monitor, I would say these are all very close, enough to say "case closed" the next time I have a 70s-era McLaren sitting around needing resto. Thanks, Kayemod.

[ixlr8nz]

I wonder how close Mclaren Orange 3211 is to the original F1/ Can Am colour? 

 

https://farm4.static...c92a62667_o.png

 

https://pacificmotor...n-mp4-12c-2014/

 

Or maybe RAL 1028 Melon Yellow may be a good substitute:

 

https://www.apexspee...19&d=1569211203   ( you may have to log on to see it, but really good example)

 

https://ral-colors.u...hades/ral-1028/

 

Regards

Mike

Edited by ixlr8nz, 01 October 2023 - 11:11.

[10kDA]

1966? Discounting the F1 cars with Yamura paint schemes for "Grand Prix", that is.

 

 

 

 

 

The color in the pics you linked to looks too orange and too bright compared to the 1967 - 68+ color.

 

[Doug Nye]

Hang on a mo - the cars pictured immediately above pre-date the 1967 Can-Am series' works team M6As in 'McLaren Orange' - perhaps some minor confusion here?

 

DCN

[68targa]

There was mention in some earlier posts that Bruce's inspiration for the 'orange/yellow' colour used from 1967, came from the Lola T70 that  Paul Hawkins raced in 1966.  Does anyone know if this is fact or just a convenient myth ?

 

This is Hawkins, August 1966. Guards Trophy Brands Hatch. 

[Doug Nye]

I believe that could very well be true.  Teddy just told me that he saw the manner in which a car wearing such such livery really stood out on American colour TV and said 'That's perfect for us".  At that time I shared a house with three BBC TV engineers, and I recall them deriding the American NTSC colour-TV system (developed for colour as early as 1953) as producing results which were "Never Twice the Same Colour"...

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 02 October 2023 - 18:42.

[10kDA]

Hang on a mo - the cars pictured immediately above pre-date the 1967 Can-Am series' works team M6As in 'McLaren Orange' - perhaps some minor confusion here?

 

DCN

Right - McLaren and Amon ran the original Can Am series in 1966 as well, with the biggest deviation, even more so than the team color, being Bruce McLaren Motor Racing didn't win the title LOL. I believe the M4-BRM is pictured at Monaco 67, though come September the '67 Can Am cars would be the color known and loved as McLaren Orange. Somewhat known, anyway - seems like it's still a variable.

[Lee Nicolle]

Color,, I am in the motortrade and know that cars fade and discolour depending on conditions stored. Metallics are the worse. I have two blue 94 Fords resting here currently and both are a different color now. And neither have been repainted.

My old racecar that lived 98% of the time in a shed painted in base colors so to be easy to match. Straight white, mid yellow and process blue. Same brand of paint and the newer yellow paint was quite a different color. Which got darker over a few years. After a big crash,, replace the rear from the windows back I had the flares done in process blue gelcoat. And I had about a litre of process blue laquer in stock [this on a Sunday] Surprisingly both looked very close. The bootlid for some reason got darker after a while. In the end the car looked a bit tatty up close but still photograhped quite well.

Racetape came in process blue and white so great for raceday repairs.

[rl1856]

It is tricky to use vintage (and even contemporary) photographs as evidence of the hue or intensity of a color.  Film and slide stock changes over time, as noted.  Digital pixels are not identical and are processed by electronic circuits and algorithms that are unique to each manufacturer.  Some reviews go into great detail in showing color shifts or rendition when testing a camera body- difference can be quite surprising.  However, any deviation, if consistent and identified, can be addressed in post processing. But the final result is then dependent on the subjective judgement of the software operator, introducing another variable. 

 

What has not been discussed is color reproduction variability among lenses.   Those interested in the hobby of photography are aware of the "Leica Glow" that produces photographs that are subtly different than what lenses from competing companies can produce.  I have first hand experience in seeing how different lenses from the same manufacturer render completely different final results when shot under the same conditions, at the same time !   Yet here we are trying to determine the correct hue of orange by trying to use 50yr old photographs as evidence.  Do we know if the photo was taken with a generic no name discount lens or professional quality Nikon lens ?  

 

The anoraks among us want to get it right, but it becomes difficult at 50-60yrs removed to know what is "right".

[amerikalei]

Right - McLaren and Amon ran the original Can Am series in 1966 as well, with the biggest deviation, even more so than the team color, being Bruce McLaren Motor Racing didn't win the title LOL. I believe the M4-BRM is pictured at Monaco 67, though come September the '67 Can Am cars would be the color known and loved as McLaren Orange. Somewhat known, anyway - seems like it's still a variable.

Amey-Dietrich Racing ordered an M4A for the US in early '67.  Chuck Dietrich had raced for Elva in FJ and seemed to have a connection (maybe Trojan was doing the customer fabrication?).  The order called for a green car, with gold stripe.  When they met the car at the Cleveland Hopkins airport (Flying Tigers Freight, facilitated by Fred Opert) the car was red.  I don't recall Chuck or my dad commenting on this later, but read it in an SCCA newsletter from that time.  The car went on to win the '67 SCCA FB National Championship that year.

 

I always figured McLaren had leftover red gelcoat from '66 that got used on that car, as noted in the photos 10kDA posted.  Maybe the barrel over at Specialized Mouldings was there to use as they'd moved on for their Can-Am livery?