Spiel

JUNE 2020 40 British Racing Green Lotus. National color schemes were well established in the first great era of Grand Prix racing during the 1920s and 1930s. Between the World Wars, the legendary Alfa Romeo cars were always seen in red (rosso corsa). From 1932 they also wore Ferrari's prancing stallion shield, as Scuderia Ferrari had become the official entrant for Alfa's cars in Grand Prix racing. Bugattis raced in the bright blue of France (the adopted county of Ettore Bugatti). This color later continued in Formula One and sports car racing with teams like Matra and Ligier. Renault went their own way with yellow as a color chosen to represent optimism and prosperity for their post- World War II logo. Post-war factory-entered Ferraris, Alfas and Maseratis all raced in red. These colors were mandated by the FIA although it is not clear when the rules were made official nor when they were officially relaxed to accommodate sponsorship. While sponsorship was common in American racing from its early days, international (read European) racing was a more gentlemanly affair and sponsorship did not appear to affect car color until the mid-1960s. In 1967, John Wyer and Gulf certainly set a trend with the signature light blue and orange brand colors on their sports racing cars. Once the gate was opened, things changed rapidly. A fun experiment is to do an image search for 'Lotus F1 car 1967'. Your result should be a sea of British Racing Green. Change the search to 'Lotus F1 car 1968' and the sea becomes red. What happened? Well, for 1968 Formula One got its first taste of sponsorship colors as Lotus entries took on the red brand color for Gold Leaf cigarettes. By the early 1970s, the national colors were only seen on the French and Italian cars. As mentioned, cars reflected the national color of their owner/ entrant. So, David Piper of Great Britain raced his Ferraris in British Racing Green. His 917, Chassis 010, usually ran in sponsor colors but today the car is painted green (albeit a lighter, brighter shade than traditional BRG). The rules did not specify a shade of color, so there is room for interpretation. Jacques Swaters, of Ecurie National Belge, raced his Ferraris in the Belgian national color, yellow. For all our Speed Yellow fans, your cars may appear to be representing Belgium! When you see the car that won Le Mans in 1956, you expect it to have been painted in dark green. However, that particular Jaguar was entered by Ecurie Ecosse from Scotland, and so appeared in dark blue with a horizontal white stripe. The same colors were used by Rob Walker on his privateer F1 entries. Post-World War II, the color scheme for American cars was white with lengthwise blue stripes. This look appeared on the Briggs Cunningham-entered cars at Le Mans from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s. The Ford GT40s used variations of the blue on white when they debuted in 1964. Shelby American reversed the color scheme for their Daytona racers (blue with a white stripe), but it is no coincidence that many Shelby Mustangs appear in white with two blue stripes. Jim Hall's Chaparral cars always raced in white although usually missing the blue stripe. Some other national color schemes were clearly derived from the nation's flag (see Finland, Sweden, Ireland or Greece). Gulf introduced sponsorship colors to sports car racing in 1967. Inverse US colors as used by Shelby American. US racing colors on a Shelby Mustang.

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