I bet you didnt know that

FrancieBrady wrote: »

What's the latin for 'use your *ecking indicators'

BMW? Oh wait, defo not. :pac:

British Racing Green that was once applied to British racing cars, originally came about because some were painted the colour of British steam trains, but it really stuck when in the very earliest days of motor racing, they tried to organise a road race in England, but the law at the time restricted speed on the public roads, so they came to Ireland(when it was still part of the UK) where there was no such restriction and they were welcomed. In gratitude for this the British team decided to paint all their cars green in honour of the host country. Though officially blue is the Irish national colour.

Other earlier national race car colours were Red for America, White for Germany and IIRC France got blue. As the years turned Italy grabbed Red for itself, Germany stopped painting their cars entirely so left them bare metal Silver which stuck and the Japanese, specifically Honda grabbed White, as that is the national colour of Japan. "Championship White" as only applied to Honda's Type R series of cars(with the red badges) commemorates this and their first F1 win back in the early 60's. Originally the colour applied was not about where the car was built, but the driver/team that entered the car. So British teams fielding Italian race cars would paint them Green.

National colours started to fade away as more and more advertising revenue came along as costs got ever bigger, slowly but surely crowding out the colours with adverts. Though Ferrari and Mercedes keep the hints of the old schemes.