The greatest season of F1 liveries

[UltimateDanGTR]

Got this idea when looking at all the 2011 car liveries, where I came to the conclusion that whilst most cars had great liveries, putting all the colour schemes together wouldn't look as great as some other seasons.

So I ask you, regardless of drivers, cars, teams, races etc etc.....In what season did F1 have the best set of liveries.

For me, It's 2001:

Ferrari: obvious beatiful Ferrari red
Mclaren: Awesome black and silver
Williams: OK blue and white livery
Benetton: cool sky blue
BAR: I'm not usually a fan of white F1 cars, the red, black and gold additions of BAR made them look good, even if later version looked better than the 003.
Jordan: Beautiful, garish, eccentric yellow. You can't beat beat it. Black additions made the car look very aggresive.
Arrows: I loved the orange and black of Arrows, they are sorely missed
Sauber: The blue with lime green petronas additions and white sections were always fantastic in my eyes.
Jaguar: British racing green, made shiny. The white broke it up succesfully, and the result was beautiful.
Minardi: pretty much all black, which is always good on an f1 car
Prost: Awesome dark blue with a good shine to it.

2000-2005 was actually a fantastic era for liveries IMO, but things havn't been the same since Jordan and Minardi reincarnated. (and Arrows and Prost went before)


Any other views on this subject?

[Sonic]

It's certainly a unique thread. I'll have to give it some thought although perhaps sometime around the early/mid nineties had a nice spectrum.

[Henry Street]

My favourite is the 2000 season, where each team had a unique colour scheme that could not be confused as being any other team.

Hello from a newbie, btw.

[52Paddy]

Hard to pick one off the top of my head, but I did enjoy liveries from the late 80s-mid 90s. 1995 was a good year for liveries.

Ferrari: that dark red
Benetton: really nice mixes of dark and bright blues
Williams: Rothmans livery
McLaren: white and red Marlboro
Jordon: nice mixes of different greens
Ligier: dark Gauloises blue
Sauber: again, the dark blue colour catches me. Just looked really slick
Tyrell: particularly nice in it's early guise, before it was made a little more bland after a few races
Footwork: I'm a fan of that dense livery of red/pink, blue and white
Minardi: always loved that green/white mix
Pacific: preferred 1994 colours actually
Forti: the Paramalat yellow/greens made the car stand out, even if it's performance didn't
Simtek: that dark purplish colour was smashing, especially with the MTV logo

Come to think of it, 1995 would be quite hard to top in my opinion

[52Paddy]

Hello from a newbie, btw.

Welcome to the forums

You're not referring to Henry Street in Dublin or Limerick by any chance are you?

[Sonic]

I think, after careful consideration (ok no consideration ) that 1994 gets my vote. The highlights? Glad you asked.

The Rothmans livery was da bomb but on the low nose FW16 it looked at it's best.

Ferrari's blood red of set with the black wings.

Simtec - wicked Purple and still on of my favourite ever livery designs.

Larrousse - I had a soft spot for these guys.

And of course you had McLaren in it's long time Red and white, Benetton in the best Mild Seven livery I think they ever had, and the old fave's of Ligier blue etc. The only one that let the side down that year IMO was Lotus - dog of a car (until Monza) and dog of a livery.

[DazzlaF1]

My vote would go to 1989, such a wide variety amongst the 20 teams

McLAREN: The White and Marlboro Red, an instant classic
TYRRELL: Began with a sponsorless but elegant all blue before adding Camel Yellow to the airbox, sweet
WILLIAMS: My most favourite livery of all time, the White, Blue and ICI Yellow with the Canon rear wing, awesome
BRABHAM: Classic 80's Brabham colours of white and dark blue
ARROWS: Cream and Burgundy, an odd mix but it worked well
LOTUS: Their Camel Yellow phase, not that its a bad thing, it just seemed a brighter yellow than previously, made it stand out a lot though
LEYTON HOUSE MARCH: Turquiose and BP Green made it easy to pick out of a crowd, very elegant too
OSELLA: Similar to Arrows except instead of Burgundy, they had red and orange Fondmetal stripes
BENETTON: The famous Rainbow livery, some say it was ghastly but I thought it was brilliant, certainly better than that mix of Camel Yellow and Pea Green in the coming years, yuck
DALLARA: A Ferrari clone livery, not a bad thing though
MINARDI: Their classic original racing colours of Black and Yellow, cant go much wrong with that
LIGIER: Plain and simple, All in Gitanes Blue with black wings, classic Ligier colours
FERRARI: Back when Ferrari's were in proper Ferrari Red and not the bright number like we see now
LOLA/LARROUSSE: Another multi coloured variety of Black, Yellow, Green and Red, not as memorable as th Benetton colours though
COLONI: Obscure but I though elegant, Bright Yellow and Blue with Green trim, then replaced with a more professional looking White and Black with Blue and Yellow trim.
EUROBRUN: My least favourite of this season, a horrible all Orange affair
ZAKSPEED: Classic Zakspeed F1 colours of Red with the White stripe
ONYX: All Blue with the White stripe and bright Pink trim, simple but sweet
RIAL: Two-tone Blue with big Yellow RIAL letters, not as good as the Benetton Mild Seven offering in future years
AGS: Black and White, similar to Minardi in 2001

[Sonic]

Oh and I forgot, the early Saubers in black with hints of silver were beautiful.

[UltimateDanGTR]

Though I still prefer 2001-2004 era, 1995 is certainly a good suggestion, all liveries that year were likeable except for Footwork IMO. Jordan would go on to have a far better livery, but their 95 cars were pretty sweet even If I should have hated the scheme.

1989 is also a good shout because it had alot of variety, mainly because of the amount of cars on the grid. Pretty much all were likeable actually, especially Leyton House/March, Tyrrell, Onyx and Lotus as well as the predictable (Ferrari, Williams, Mclaren)

I must say though, the era in between '89 and '95 was a mixed era with alot of poor stuff in it, Lotus especially as well as Larrousse, Minardi (93-94), Jordan 92-94 (the addition of yellow in 1995 made a massive improvement IMO), Coloni, Fondmetal, Footwork etc. Mind you, post-91ish was when F1 was at it's weakest if you ask me, and poor liveries as many teams became desperate for sponsors was the unfortunate result.

[Rollo]

1986.
It had the black JPS Lotus-Renault, the red and white Marlboro McLarens, the blue yellow and white Williams, Ferraris with black tails, Benetton had their rainbow engine covers, the Brabhams looked quite smart in their blue and white, the Ligiers were still in Loto blue, Minardi looked cool in black and yellow, the Arrows were creamy...

Apart from that it would have to be 1959. I like the stripes on the Cooper Climax, Ferraris look better with their number on a big white circle and the BRM... what the hell colour is that?