National Racing Color question

Happy new year everyone!!!

After reading the post about the 2005 Liveries, I thought of something. With Prost and Jaguar now gone from the circus, Ferrari are the only F1 team that is still flying their national racing color (some might argue the exact shade).

My question is this:

I know that Red is the Italian national racing color, Blue is for France, and Green is British. Does anyone know what other colors there are for other nations?

Thanks so much.

xBook

There is some blue in the Renault. Depends how much would count... And probably not the right shade...

And Jag last year were B.R. Green

there was a thread some time ago .. try and search . it had a long list of countries-colours

I think this (http://www.ten-tenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43883&highlight=national+colors) is the thread, and this (http://www.miata.net/misc/racecolor.html)is the list.

Some colors not in i the list:

Australia: Green+Gold
Japan: White+Red
Netherlands: Orange

Germany had silver.

Germany had white. The silver came when Merecedes entered unpainted cars (because of weight problems) but the racing color is white.

I think it was 1968 when this all changed. Which since then has allowed some great looking cars (gold Leaf, JPS, etc...). However it was fantastic in the days when there were so many 'simply' cars.

BRG was always an odd one, each team having its own interpretation.

Admin: Moved to Historic

New Zealand was black and silver.

New Zealand was black and silver.Officially that should be GREEN & Silver.

Ireland is green. Siam (Thailand) is a shade of light blue. USA is white and blue. Belgium is yellow. Germany is white OR silver (same way the BR Green took over from Irish Green). Argentina is Yellow and Blue. France is Blue.

Ireland is green. Siam (Thailand) is a shade of light blue. USA is white and blue. Belgium is yellow. Germany is white OR silver (same way the BR Green took over from Irish Green). Argentina is Yellow and Blue. France is Blue.Ireland is green & orange,Thailand,blue & yellow.I think there is a lengthy thread somewhere re.how britain got green-goes back to when all of Ireland was part of UK.

British Racing Green was actually a French thing. The first instance of it came when Charles Jarrott was entered in a race pre Gordon Bennett cup with unlucky 13 as his number. The French team painted his car lucky green as compensation to his unlucky number. The next year when Britain won the Gordon Bennett race with SF Edges Napier it too was green, common thinking these days was that green was the napier house colour but the napier badge was blue. Apparently Edges car was green because his friend Jarrott said it was lucky.

The next year the Gordon Bennett race was held in Ireland which was part of the UK back then, mainly because racing was ( and still is) banned on British public roads, The cars stayed green with Count Zabrowski saying it was a tribute to the Irish hosts.

Thats the chronology which story you believe is up to you.

There was a massive debate on the Mercedes lightening their car to race in silver and whether they were actually ever white and it may just be urban legend. Auto Union ran at AVUS prior to the story and they may have been silver anyway.

Yo Red,

Thank you so very much for the links. That was EXACTLY what i was looking for. You rock!!

Best wishes in the new year.

I wonder if some of these colours were ever used. For example, Egypt with violet and red numbers - maybe the Djelmo?

I once read that the Siamese colours of "Bira's blue" and yellow were selected to match the colours of a girl's dress.

The present grid would be quite colourful if cars were painted according to the driver's nationality rather than the entrant's one.

Having said that, I've just realise that Toyota are using the Japanese colours.

and Jaguar were using the British (sorta)

and McLaren Mercedes the German (again sorta). Its not totally dead Prost/Ligier were pretty much always blue as well.

The white/silver paint-scraping story has just one source: the often unreliable memoirs of Alfred Neubauer, so not even contemporary to the event. No press reports at the time mention it. It's just a pity that MB didn't turn up at AVUS in 1934: this was where the AUs raced for the first time, as always in bare metal. Early pictures of the W25 seem to show it as white and the paint scraping allegedly happened at the Eifelrennen: yet a short time later, Barré Lyndon describes the MBs at Montlhéry as white!

As to the blue on the Ligiers and Prosts: that had more than a little to do with the house colours of Gitanes! The blue of works Bugattis in the 20s and 30s was apparently the same shade as a packet of Gitanes as well.

Indeed, Gitanes/Gauloise blue. All pieces fell well into places, Gitanes are also French. Can't remember about Ligier, but Prost really did want to make an all-French team. Peugeot, Gitanes, even Panis and the blue color.

bar are also using japanese colours(plus black).

I once read that the Siamese colours of "Bira's blue" and yellow were selected to match the colours of a girl's dress.

I think you'll find that was Vauxhall's purple racing colours.

Vauxhall may have pinched the idea, but "Bira blue" was reproduced from a scrap of the fabric which the prince snipped off the young lady's dress! She was Dutch IIRC: throughout his life Bira was well-known for his "success with the ladies" ;)

Bira was well-known for his "success with the ladies" ;)
Rumour has it, to the extent of being banned from a hotel near a well known Midlands hill climb venue after being found entertaining two at the same time?

More than a rumour, I believe .... although who was entertaining who is open to debate!

Not the sort of episode which made it into Chula's books, or even Bira's own memoirs "Bits & Pieces". There are a few clues in Ceril's book though.

Black for the USA I believe.....

No, the official US colours were white and blue. You might be thinking of Whitney Straight's cars from the 30s, Mike. These were often run in black (Seaman's and Hamilton's MGs and the 8CM for example), but when running in events where organisers were stricter (eg Monaco), Straight repainted them.

A similar situation exists with Earl Howe. His preferred racing colour was blue and whenever possible he ran in blue cars. If Continental organisers insisted on green, he would repaint the car, but still left a blue coachline.

Howe's preference for blue almost led to a change in the British international colour immediately after WW2 ....

A rather patriotic American Sports 2000 Carbir

http://www.theracesite.com/index.cfm?template=pa&form_pa_id=488&form_photo_num=3

This is in the similar kind of colour scheme that i think A1 GP will run...with parts of/the whole flags of the countries concerned. Is this true or just a load of rubbish