Why red Ferraris?

They wanted them Red to match a future owners idea of putting a cherry bomb glasspack muffler on to save some money.

 

Many of the older roadcars were painted non-red. Somewhere in the mid-seventies when the Boxers and 308s came out, more cars were painted red than before. This continued untill more recent years, when again more cars were seen in other colors than red. The real reason is unknown to me. I think it has to do with resale value in one way, and on how a car looks in the other way. That said, I think most of the recent cars look better when non-red.

 

The red was started because of racing Rosso Corsa ( Racing Red)
In early days of competition the official color of the Italian racing teams was Red.

Italy= Red
Germany= Silver
France= Blue
England= Green

so on and so on


Wade

 

Ferrari makes cars that AREN'T red?!!

 

Germany was originally white but they needed to lop off some weight so they removed the paint leaving bare metal...silver.

 

I thought Japan was white?

I'm not too clear on what the official American racing color is though... ?


-DC

 

Red White & Blue

 

White with blue strips.

 

I think it's part of Ferrari lore that Enzo only wanted the race cars to be rosso corsa, not the customer cars, hence the lack of early road cars that were not originally red.

 

There is a reason it is called resale red. Red just looks bright and chearful and in most cases a car that is painted red will stand out and get sold off the used car yard.

I think we are seeing a trend away from red brand new Ferraris now, but I have admit if I was ordering one red would be one of the colour choices ... to associate my car even more with the racing heritege of Ferrari.

Pete

 

The bad thing about red is that it washes out details if you try and photograph a car. Darker colors, particularly blues and silvers show 3D details much better.

I think its one of the reasons that cars like the Mondial and GT4 get a bad reputation. If you see them in darker colors, they look much cleaner design wise.

 

Judge,

Do you think that is why cheap second hand cars with dodgy bodies get painted red ... ie. look good in the photos by hiding the bad details?

Pete

 

Pete:

It's called "resale red" for a reason.

Erik

 

Still is; in fact, so far as i know, all the countries still follow the color code during official races...

 

What races? ... colours are sadly determined by sponsors wishes nowadays.

Pete

 

This also relates to the "shields" discussion.

Early racing occurred during a more nationalistic era in Europe. Classic events like the Mille Millia or the Targa Florio were often raced by rich aristocrats, running cars they bought from manufacturers like Ferrari, Alfa, Jaguar, etc. The car's colors reflected the nationality of the racing team, rather than the manufacturer, so there were yellow Ferraris operated by Belgian teams, etc. The shields distinguished Ferraris raced by Scuderia Ferrari from those operated by another Italian team.

It is, now. Germany had to shave off the paint long before Japan entered European racing.

Invisible.

 

Hmmm..... could be right!!!
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DGS said "invisible", good one! Americans however do participate in some international races but there is no particular pattern to their color. It is probably because most of their cars are easily identifiable (Panoz, Saleen, Corvette,..)

 

Er, no it is because no racing team paints their cars in their countries colours anymore ... just the sponsors colours.

Do you guys live under a rock or something?

This racing in national colours has not happened for around 40 years atleast. Also many race teams are now multi-national ... thus who's country do you paint it?

Pete

 

That great innovator, Colin Chapman, sealed the fate of BRG (British Racing Green) et all with the Gold Leaf tobacco company colours in F1 decades ago.

Of the existing F1 teams only Ferrari have retained the national colour throughout. It is however, modified so that it looks better on TV.

Before anyone starts on me:

Jaguar:
OK that was green but nowhere near BRG and anyway they no longer exist.

Toyota:
Are their cars red or white?

Renault:
In their previous incarnation they weren't French blue.

McLaren-Mercedes
Following the logic of the weight loss argument, these should be bare carbon not silver but I would argue that McLaren is a British team anyway.

The rest will just paint their cars to suit the headline sponsor.

 

Carbon, Carbon, Carbon

J5 red
J6 yellow
J7 bronze
J8 blue
Official Ford entries 1967 Le Mans

 

True, some say his greatest influence on motorsport was bringing sponsorship to the sport ...

Malboro colours ... but still red .

Sponsors colours. Jaguar racing team was simply a marketing exercise and thus if you like the sponsor of the Ford owned team was Jaguar ... hence they painted it in Jaguar colours ... which is why it was green, because Jaguar and BRG go long back. So green for Jaguar not really for England.

Panasonic colours ...

Correct, in the 70's (or 80's?) the Renault team was yellow, black and white ... the colours of their sponsors Elf and others.

Wests colours. Technically McLaren's should be orange (and they painted a F1 car during testing the correct orange and it looked fncken awesome ... before West came along) as that is New Zealands racing colour ... but then the NZ connection is really just the name.

Er, ALL (even Ferrari now ) ... as money makes the motorracing world go brmmmmm brmm

Even the Bentley Le Mans cars are painted to suit their main sponsor, BENTLEY as that is about as much input Bentley put in to the cars ...

Pete

 

On a similar note.... Why yellow Lamborghinis?

 

Not exactly. Yellow, black and white are the corporative colours of Renault Sport, the sporting arm of Renault. Their old rallye and sports cars used to be yellow, black and white too, but I don´t know why they chose that combo. In the same way, red and white are not the colours of Panasonic, it´s the usual scheme of Toyota Team Europe.