The Long Story of the Appearance of the Legendary Livery at the Motorsport Event
Each motorsport event has different characteristics in each vehicle appearance. One of the most prominent and iconic is the livery of each team that participated in this activity. Livery is also an important aspect to differentiate between drivers and other drivers.
This also makes some automotive enthusiasts to apply various livery to their private vehicles, starting from the livery with the theme of a racing stripe to the typical livery of a racing event along with various sponsors in it.
Not only is it a characteristic of cars, car owners can show their love for one of the motorsport teams through the livery . In fact, several manufacturers have embedded their respective livery characteristics on their standard car units.
Racing Stripe – Adaptation of Motorsport Identity to the Identity of Manufacturers
Various American car manufacturers have been pinning the racing stripe on their vehicles for many years. Some people think that Shelby American is the first manufacturer to apply a racing stripe to their cars through the Shelby Cobra and GT 350 in 1965.
Pete Brock, is Shelby American’s Head of Special Project . He decided to add additional design lines to the car he was working on. Pete Brock added 2 straight blue lines that were drawn from the front to the back of the car.
His decision to add additional lines to the car was highly praised. Pete Brock’s decision was considered a brilliant idea because it gave the car from Shelby American a more sporty vibe.
Pete Brock started asking questions about where he inspired to add a simple design but had a tremendous impact on the way the public views the car made by him.
Pete Brock gives credit for his work to a man named Briggs Cunningham. Brock explained that Briggs Cunningham was one of the Le Mans racers in 1951.
Cunningham participated in the Le Mans event by designing his own racing vehicle, named the Cunningham C-2R. Cunningham decided to make his car different from the other teams by giving the car 2 longitudinal lines.
Not without purpose, the racing regulations at that time required that every vehicle participating in the Le Mans race must have the car color according to the national team color. Cunningham himself is a man from America and it is known that the American flag has the national colors of white and imperial blue.
Generally, every American team only colors the body of their car with white and blue on the frame . That’s what made Cunningham want to experiment with coloring the car completely white and adding 2 stripes of imperial blue from the front to the back of the car.
The car made by Cunningham was a different sight at the motorsport event at that time, to the point where the news was discovered by Pete Brock, who was still young at that time.
From there the origin of the famous stripe racing to this day. The racing stripe also inspired various automotive manufacturers in the world to have their own version of the racing stripe as their identity.
Livery Sponsor at Motorsport Event
Just like the Le Mans motorsport event , the Formula 1 event also applies regulations on car colors that must be adjusted to the national colors of the teams participating in the event. Until 1968 at the Africa Grand Prix, where John Love from the Gunstone team gave their sponsor a slot to put a logo on his car.
To take part in the Formula 1 event requires a very large amount of money, so Formula 1 provides regulatory relief in order to sell their vehicle body parts to add the sponsor’s logo on their car, which is intended to provide additional funds for the team.
This rule was utilized optimally by one of the teams from British nationality, Colin Chapman Lotus Team, changing the British national green (British Racing Green) and yellow to the signature color of their sponsor, Martini.
The lotus team has reportedly secured a contract deal worth £ 85,000 (approx. £ 1,400,000 / day) to replace the country’s traditional colors with red and white.
From the deal obtained by the Lotus team, they managed to secure their position so that they can continue to race without having to struggle with financial problems. This also led to various teams competing to sell sponsor slots on the cars they used at the event, and presenting many iconic livery that have been re-adapted by world automotive fans.