Useless Car Knowledge Part XXVII: The Story Behind About Car Colors

In general we buy a car, basically red, yellow, blue, green, brown, black, white and silver, want other colors, ordering a car is a hassle. However, about the color of the car, in fact, there is a story.

In 1900, that's right, 120 years ago, there was a racing competition in France called the Gordon Bennett Cup (Gordon Bennett), which began as a 500-kilometer run from Paris to Lyon, and lasted for five years. In this event, the legendary driver Louis Zborowski's father, Count Eliot Zborowski, proposed that the participating cars be painted in different colors according to the country, so blue for France, yellow for Belgium, white for Germany and red for the United States were assigned.

Britain also took part in the race in 1902, but because the red, blue and white colors on the British flag were allotted, Britain had to choose olive green, and the car won the championship that year.

In 1903 the Bennett Cup was moved to the British race, and Britain also changed the car to clover green, a color now called British Racing Green (british race green), with its Hex code #004225, sRGB code (1, 66, 37), CMYK code (90, 44, 92, 54), HSV code ( 153.2°, 98.5%, 25.9%).

The Bennett Cup ended in 1905, but this color distribution was also agreed upon, and the Italian Fiat won the grand prix in 1907, and its championship red color was adopted by all Italian car manufacturers as their national color. This Italian racing red is called Rosso corsa, hex code #D40000, rgb(212, 0, 0), hsv(0°, 100%, 83%).

In the interregnum between World War I and World War II, some German teams such as Mercedes-Benz began to switch to the bare sheet metal color silver, rumor has it that this was to save weight on paint, but in fact the weight limit rule only started in 1934, and the first all-silver team was in 1932, and because of Mercedes-Benz's outstanding results, this color style became silver arrow.

Alfa Romeo, which began to show its mettle in the 1930s, also began to use rosso corsa, an Italian red color.

Jaguar, the representative of British racing, British Racing Green is seen more often on Jaguar, also because there seems to be few proper British cars left.

French racing blue is called Bleu de France, hex#318CE7, rgb(49, 140, 231), CMYK(90, 44, 92, 54)HSV(153.2°, 98.5%, 25.9%), but France's racing career hasn't been very smooth, so this blue color is not very famous.

Actually Bugatti is also a French brand, so French Racing Blue is also a Bugatti color

This blue color you can now see on the chrion as well. French is called Bleu de France

The red represents the United States, but the United States of America's racing performance is not good, and the United States did not participate in much between World War I and World War II in Europe, and so after World War II and then race the United States to find that the red, blue, and white of their own flag were occupied by others, so the United States began to use the blue and white stripes on their own race cars with the color scheme, which is called the Racing This is called Racing stripe, also known as rally stripe, as it was first seen mainly in rallying and was invented by the famous Shelby god.

The blue in this stripe is called Imperial blue, Hex#005A92, RGB(0, 90, 146), CMYK(100, 38, 0, 43), HSV(203°, 100%, 57%), and some American teams also use this color directly all over the body, but of course there are many Renaissance cars using the Rally stripe in production. cars are now painted in Rally Stripes on production cars.

In fact, this stripe is inspired by the hull stripe paint of the Coast Guard ships, according to international standards, the U.S. stripe is the top like this, the Chinese is the bottom like this, so if the domestic car like to do a Rally Stripe paint, with the following this kind of color scheme is the most "authentic".

The post-war Japanese return to F1 was in red and white, and in honor of their success in 1965, the typeR can now be had in a championship white color scheme.

Painting cars by country became history in 1968 when F1 liberalized its color requirements with the addition of private teams, and Lotus painted its cars in the tobacco sponsor's color scheme.

But with the advent of the Renaissance, some of the teams with a "traditional racing" identity still paint their cars in the traditional national colors. Of course there are variations on the traditional colors, such as Mercedes-Benz's awesome Moonlight Lime color.

Aston Martin's Racing Green is a little brighter than traditional.

Red still dominates the colors of Italian vehicles, not just racing cars, but Alfa Romeo's production cars sell best in red.

It's not clear whether red made Ferrari or Ferrari made red, and the rosso corsa has a tendency to gradually be called Ferrari red.

Another famous red is Mazda's soul red, which has now been upgraded to crystal soul red, a color that changes under the effect of light and shadow, which is pleasing to the eye.

Soul red by ppg color number 46v, this color combination of metallic pearl and color varnish, than the conventional spray paint process more than a coat, so the effect is also very outstanding, the name of the artisan paint is not blown out.

Of course, good-looking paint repair is also very troublesome, such as soul red 4s to make up a piece of 700 yuan, sprayed good or bad also depends entirely on the master technology, more than spray a paint color runs off.

In the factory also want to add a painting process, electrophoresis - metal pearl primer - color transparent paint - transparent varnish, so this color to add 2000, or more conscientious.

France can not keep their own French blue, Germany likes to use, for example, Volkswagen's most famous biscay blue (biscay blue) dedicated to the R-series vehicles.

But biscay blue is actually the blue American cars Ford and General Motors started to use, and now Porsche will also have this color, but the recipe is not the same, the hair color will be slightly different.

When it comes to limited colors for vehicles, it's BMW, which has a wide range of exclusive limited colors for its M-series vehicles.

The most common and famous is also a blue color generally called E Blue, that is, Etos Blue (Estoril Blue), this blue color in fact Audi also use, inspired by the Autodromo do Estoril circuit in Portugal, this track in the 1984 to 1996 years hosted the F1 and GP Grand Prix. Famous racer Aryton Senna won his first victory at the track.

BMW's colors are mostly named after race tracks to highlight its racing genes and historical heritage, such as the San Marino Blue that was once exclusive to the m4, which originated from the San Marino circuit.

Laguna Seca Blue (Laguna Seca Blue), also exclusive to the m-series blue, the name comes from California's Laguna Seca Raceway, BMW won a number of races on this track, including the USCC, GTLM and other victories.

Le Mans Blue, the M3M5's exclusive blue color, is configured to commemorate BMW's victory in '99.

Montreal Blue, although BMW only won the Montreal Grand Prix in '08, the Montreal track has always been good for BMW. It's not an m-series exclusive color, but it needs to be personalized.

avus Blue, I can't find the Chinese name for this one because it was only available for one year in 2000 on the z3 and m5. Now the m4 seems to be able to choose this color? I haven't looked into it. The Avus is one of the oldest highways in Europe. The highway runs through Germany and was still used for motor races until 1998. Also, the Berlin Marathon (now known as the BMW Berlin Marathon) was run along this road.

Monaco Blue is derived from the Monte Carlo circuit in Monaco, where JP Montoya drove a BMW to first place in the Monaco GP in 2008.

Biarritz Blue is a very old French car rally in which BMW often participates, starting in Paris and finishing in Biarritz. The race usually lasts five days.

M3 M4 exclusive Abu Dhabi Blue, BMW really like to use blue ah. (Actually, Ferrari used this color first.)

Finally, there's the little brother of the BMW blue family, atlantis blue.

In fact, BMW has played with other colors a lot, such as the famous Imola Red (Imola Red), from the Imola F1 circuit in San Marino. 2001, the BMW Williams F1 team in San Marino Imola circuit won the first victory in F1. Schumacher won the first F1 race of his life

M-series exclusive Donington grey (donington grey) this color suv on a better look, looks more soft.

Austin yellow (austin yellow), this metallic color is the earliest M4 exclusive, and later M2, i8, M550 can also be selected, a bit similar to the spirit of red, in the sunshine performance is very psychedelic.

In fact, Austin yellow is upgrading the original Dakar yellow (dakar yellow), Dakar will not explain, this color used to be more than ten years ago M3 limited edition color, and now it is not done.

Above is the story of the car color, the car is really fun, seemingly simple thing behind a wonderful history.

This is the story of the color of the car.