McLaren changing colors?

[Rollo]

Just out of curiosity, since McLaren is a British team and the British color for car racing is green (if I am correct) why would not McLaren be green?

Bruce McLaren came from New Zealand; New Zealand should have the colour scheme of Green with a Silver Stripe. However for the first GP for a McLaren to appear in Monaco 1966, they reversed the colours.



The McLaren orange comes from Bruce's days of Can-Am racing, where he painted his unsponsored cars orange so that potential sponsors would notice and hopefully pick him up.

PS Isn't silver the German color for car racing?

Technically the German color for car racing is white, and there are all sorts of theories as to why German cars went silver, including the Mercedes W25 being 1kg overweight and having all of the paint shaved off.

Whatever reason for German car actually being silver, McLaren didn't appear with a silver livery until the 1997 when West took over from Marlboro. The Mercedes Silver was incidental until 2000 when Daimler bought 40% of the team.

[Retro Formula 1]

Just out of curiosity, since McLaren is a British team and the British color for car racing is green (if I am correct) why would not McLaren be green?

PS Isn't silver the German color for car racing?

Germany is white and Britian Green because of the earliest British races being held in Ireland.

Don't think I would like to see McLaren in green though. Reminds me too much of Cooper and Lotus (amongst others).

I love the silver / Black Mclaren livery which in my opinion look mean and also could be argued pays homage to Bruce's Kiwi roots (Silver Fern).

[Robinho]

that was a crap fake livery, obviously on last years car, including the Bridgestone tyres, all other new liveries shown have Pirelli's on.

hardly newsworthy, it seems everyone is intent on seeing what black F1 cars look like all of a sudden. That one looks like a cheap rip off of the Virgin livery

[Robinho]

Germany is white and Britian Green because of the earliest British races being held in Ireland.

Don't think I would like to see McLaren in green though. Reminds me too much of Cooper and Lotus (amongst others).

I love the silver / Black Mclaren livery which in my opinion look mean and also could be argued pays homage to Bruce's Kiwi roots (Silver Fern).

i though Germany was Sliver and Japan was white. Britain, Green. Italy, Red. USA Blue and White. although i'm not sure if France was Blue as well

[Retro Formula 1]

i though Germany was Sliver and Japan was white. Britain, Green. Italy, Red. USA Blue and White. although i'm not sure if France was Blue as well

Britian was Green because Ireland was then part of the UK before the GPO rising and races were held there as they were not allowed in the mainland.

Germany was white, France Blue and Italy Red which was why we were buggered on the traditional colours.

Not 100% sure as this was from a long time ago when I did a bit of research into the origions of Motorsport at the turn of the century.

[V12]

I vaguely remember reading a story about BRG's origins - I forget which one but it went one of two ways. A British driver entered a race on the continent and was assigned the number 13, traditionally considered unlucky in this country by some. And then either:

1) Green was considered a lucky colour so he painted his car green to offset the number

or

2) Green was considered an unlucky colour so he painted his car green to make some sort of point to the organisers.

Can't remember which.

Either way it's something I vaguely remember reading a long time ago and can't remember where, so don't take it as gospel. The Ireland theory does make more sense to be honest.

[Mark]

Ireland and Great Britain were still part of the UK in the early 1900's. However motor sport was illegal in Great Britain but not in Ireland. Green was used to represent that they were racing in Ireland.

[555-04Q2]

Interesting learning about the origing of BRG

[Mintexmemory]

[quote="Rollo"]

The McLaren orange comes from Bruce's days of Can-Am racing, where he painted his unsponsored cars orange so that potential sponsors would notice and hopefully pick him up.



quote]

Actually as you can see in the pic the Can-Am cars (and the 1968 F1 cars) were sponsored by Goodyear and on the side of the car - Gulf. The cars were in Gulf Orange IIRC to distinguish them from the JW sportscar team (who used different shades of blue and orange from the original Gulf corporate colours). Additional 'official' national colours: Belgium, Yellow. Holland, Orange

[truefan72]

No they're not changing colours. That's obviously photoshopped. Ferrari aren't going to have a green livery just cause someone abuses photoshop either.

exactly