History lesson: How racing cars earned their stripes
A look into the evolution of the world’s most iconic racing liveries.
Related articles
When Enzo Ferrari famously remarked that race cars “become beautiful when they win,” he probably did not fully appreciate the full cultural power those looks would evoke. In the relatively brief history of motorsports, particular graphic treatments—racing liveries—have bounded from cars and uniforms into all sorts of places, including watch dials and straps. And from there they continue to fire our imagination, even when the particular details of the cars and the victories they earned begin to fade.
“The most iconic liveries are the ones born out of simplicity,” says Jaguar’s director of design, Ian Callum, who spent the better part of the 1990s working as the chief designer at TWR, a British racing team and engineering firm. “Fundamentally, stripes matter; they accentuate a car’s forms. By using stripes in a certain way, you can give a car a unity that it might not otherwise have.”
Early racing livery
Up until the late 1960s, international racing circuits featured solid-colour paint schemes, which indicated the nationality of the car manufacturer or driver. When sponsorships entered the fray in 1968, more intricate liveries came to life. The following decade, bright colors were the avor of the moment, but Lotus bucked that trend by introducing the John Player Special, an all-black paint scheme that spotlighted its sponsors in gold. “It was really amazing, as you had these clean lines of the car that went along with the elegance of the black colour,” says Giorgio Piola, Motorsport Network’s head of technical analysis and illustration. “The car came to be known as the Black Beauty.”
Lotus John Player Special
Two decades later, Callum elaborated upon that clean graphic concept by designing a two-tone purple paint scheme for the Silk Cut Racing team’s Jaguar XJR-14. “It was the idea to make it look like it was covered in a blanket of purple silk material,” he explains. “This was really the first attempt to cover a car with something more interesting than just stripes. The graphic showcased the shape of the car instead of trying to disguise it.”
Silk Cut Racing two-tone concept
Artistic and cohesive livery designs, although the most memorable, were uncommon throughout the 1970s and are even rarer today. According to Callum, the reason for that is racing’s commercial imperative. “It is such a difficult exercise,” he says. “When someone is paying millions of dollars they want their pound of flesh.”
In rare instances, a renowned racing livery is born from race car engineering. The most notable occurrence took place in 1971, when Porsche engineers aimed to merge the body styles of the short- and long-tail 917 models. The race car that emerged featured a wide body with rounded wheel cutouts and a short, low, nose. Although the car was nimble and quick—it was the fastest car during prerace qualifying sessions at Le Mans—it was also rather ugly. Embracing this, Porsche’s racing team created a pink racing livery that sectioned it off into the body parts of a pig, including the names of each butcher cut in German. The car quickly earned the nickname “Pink Pig” (as well as “Big Berta” and “True Hunter”), and Porsche recently brought the livery out of retirement for the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Steve McQueen in Le Mans
Famous liveries conceived during the late 1960s and throughout the ’70s also earned their iconic status, in part, from factors unrelated to color schemes or racing stripes. “The human story was more important in the 1970s than it is now,” says Harold Primat, a retired professional racer who, during his 17-year career, competed numerous times at Le Mans and in the Blancpain Endurance Series. “You were talking about these amazing engineers and amazing drivers and an amazing sponsor. You felt like you were a part of it; you could recognise yourself in that story. It made an emotional impact because of the human adventure, and the accomplishment felt more human.”
The 1971 Le Mans, starring Steve McQueen, immortalised the powder-blue-and-orange Gulf livery and epitomizes this notion. In 2009, Primat raced for the Gulf-sponsored Aston Martin team, and he says his love of the livery and the pride he felt driving the car was linked to the livery’s history, specifically through that Hollywood lens. “I don’t even know what victories the Gulf livery had,” he says. “But I know that it’s Le Mans and Steve McQueen. That got people dreaming about racing.”
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Recommended for you
Something in the Air
Tasmania is a haven for the slower side of life—unless you happen to be driving the new electric Porsche Taycan over heart-stopping, rally-bred roads.
December 11, 2024
Jaguar’s First All-Electric Concept Is a Polarising Break From the Marque’s Past
The Type 00 represents the automaker’s new design vision for its zero-emissions future, while a production grand tourer is planned for 2026.
By Ben Oliver
December 18, 2024
You may also like.
You may also like.
Forget a Bow Tie. Here Are 3 Black-Tie Accessories to Rock Instead
Stylist Tom Stubbs on ditching the bow tie this festive season—and what to wear alternatively.
Black tie, that essential marker of an increasingly rarefied ceremonial style, is inspiring. Nothing coaxes men into upping the sartorial ante quite like reading those words on an invitation. I say amen to raising the bar, but I can’t bear wearing a traditional bow tie—and haven’t done so for over a decade.
Around the turn of the millennium, I was enthusiastically dress-code obedient, but two unstoppable forces put me off: Fashion moved on, and I got old. Where abiding by hallowed traditions once felt exalted, it suddenly began to seem restrictive and stuffy. And while it was extraordinary to be a bow-tied 30-something, in my 40s, the convention made me feel like a pompous, conservative square. Now, menswear has changed so much that bow ties register as pedestrian garb better suited to waiters than to revellers.
Fortunately, there are several black-tie alternatives that excite and inspire me now that I’m well into my 50s—many espoused by stylish guys on the red carpet and innovative designers in London, Paris, Florence, and Milan. And though I might take a bow on nonconformism as I step into my 60s, I still plan to steer clear of the bow tie, that ultimate symbol of gentlemanly customs, for as long as I can. Here’s what I’m replacing it with.
Form and Function
I got excited seeing Lemaire’s slim metallic modernised bolo ties in the house’s fall 2024 show. A favourite of men as varied as Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, and Snoop Dogg, the bolo is perhaps best remembered as the chosen neckwear of John Travolta’s surly hit man, Vincent, in Pulp Fiction. Originally, Native American tribes including the Zuni, Hopi, and Navajo used these accessories used to fasten bandannas with plaited-leather cords. High-end versions double as a bit of jewellery, with silver slides set with turquoise and often engraved with animal motifs, including buffalo skulls and eagles. Contemporary takes abound, but vintage sleuthing can turn up some particularly beguiling options.
Gambling Man
Varying in size, flounce, and attitude, ribbon ties—also called gambler or Kentucky neckties—have long been a legitimate black-tie alternative. Actor Cillian Murphy has worn Saint Laurent’s take to various award shows, looking stand-alone chic and authentically cool. They have a distinct Western energy—Kirk Douglas donned one as Doc Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, as did Robert Vaughan in The Magnificent Seven. But they’re as much rock star as they are gunslinger: The late Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls and Bauhaus front man Peter Murphy (style role models of mine) also wore them with panache. Take a note from the runway and wear them with a pair of boots—cowboy, Chelsea, or with a Cuban heel—to really step away from the standard.
Fit to Be Tied
Getty Images/Courtesy of Lemaire
If you want to give yourself some breathing room, consider scarves and neckerchiefs. This fall, Tom Ford proposed a louche take on evening style, using black, slim-plaited, or delicately sequined scarves whose long tassels provocatively dangle at the hips. For maximum effect, the brand styled them with open satin shirts, recalling rockers Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart. London’s La Bowtique also does beautiful outsize bows. On a smaller scale, the Twilly—a short silk scarf pioneered by Hermès—works in much the same manner. The French maison makes gorgeous options with angled ends for extra verve, whether hanging loose or more discreetly knotted.
You may also like.
Show Stoppers
The Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance—a beauty pageant for priceless classic cars—returns for another instalment at the city’s most intriguing, and unlikeliest, venue.
The logic behind staging a prestige automobile show on an island may, at face value, seem warped—history tells us that cars and water do not play nicely. The rationale twists further when said piece of land is a former shipyard that is, aesthetically, more workhorse ute than classic Ferrari.
Scratch beneath the surface, however, and the decision to plant the Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance on Cockatoo Island for the second year running begins to make locational sense: the steel arch of the emblematic bridge acting as photogenic backcloth; the UNESCO World Heritage site’s previous guises as 19th-century penal colony and eminent boat-building facility fleshing the show’s historical bones; the theatre of watching collectors delicately coaxing their four-wheeled artworks off a rusty roll-on/roll-off barge in the islet’s wharf before showtime. (After all, if owning a car in this stratosphere isn’t about projecting drama, then what’s the point?)
Throw in an endless endowment of free Champagne for guests and VIP transport from the mainland via superyacht, and it barely matters that the three-day jamboree is, in the words of founder and curator James Nicholls, “a logistical nightmare”.
“People love the energy, the adventure” says the Anglo-Italian, a broadcaster, writer and photographer whose extensive resume includes various stints as a concours judge across the world. “There’s a great contrast between the luxurious motor cars and the industrial environment. The Turbine Shop [a timeworn, hanger-like space used to display the vehicles] is where ocean-going liners and propellers were built. People interested in cars are also interested in that kind of thing but it’s just a backdrop. Cars are the main focal point.”
The concours d’elegance concept (“concours” means “competition” in French) can be traced back to 17th-century Paris, when aristocrats would flaunt horse-drawn carriages in local parks during summer months. Animals eventually gave way to automobiles, and the gatherings mutated into more organised contests in which these new-fangled contraptions were, in somewhat prescient fashion, judged solely on the appearance. The trend spread throughout European high society, before reaching America in 1950 with an inaugural pageant at Pebble Beach, California—a concours which has since evolved into a behemoth of the species, now billing itself as “the world’s most prestigious car show” and drawing 214 vehicles and spectators in the low five figures at the last annual meeting. Other concours are thriving globally, from spectacles in Lake Como in Italy (the longest running event, launched in 1929) to Udaipur in India. Vanity, it seems, remains in vogue.
Among this storied company, Sydney’s interpretation is playing catch-up. But Nicholls insists the local variant—launched in 2019, having occupied three other citywide locations—has no intention of locking horns with competitors. Not numerically, at least.
“In 2024, we had 500 people over the three days; this year we’ll aim for 750. But we’re never going to become a 20,000-people show,” he says. “We want it to be bespoke and beautiful, so people don’t have to queue for a glass of Champagne. You can talk to the car owners, and everyone feels like a VIP.” The overarching aim is to become a “destination event” on the socialite calendar, on par with the Melbourne Cup or the Australian Grand Prix.
While keen to keep paying visitors guessing, Nicholls offers Robb Report a sneak peek into some of the 44 objets booked to occupy the coarse, exposed-brick viewing hall, ranging from turn-of-the-century rarities to modern-day exotics: a 1905 Eugène Brillié 20/24 HP Coupé Chauffeur, believed to be the only one of its ilk left; a 1955 Porsche Speedster 356 “Pre A”, examples of which are valued in excess of $750,000; a Lamborghini Miura 3400, a model famed for its starring role in the opening sequence to 1969’s The Italian Job movie; a 2021 Audi R8 Spyder, an iteration that is no longer being produced and thus quietly accruing kudos.
Up to seven “classes” will be open, including categories solely for Porsche Speedsters and pre-war Australian coachbuilt cars. Two 1930s Bugattis are slated for appearance, one of which is, as this article is being written, on a boat somewhere, on its way to Australia. A panel of seven judges, led by the first ever female concours head assessor, who also adjudicated in 2024, will select the overall “Best in Show” winner—scored last time out by a 1964 Ferrari 250 LM, a model line with a $24 million price tag attached. And in a progressive play designed to lure the oil-shunning generation, an “electric elegance” section will debut. Nicholls estimates the combined value of all this precious metal at around $80 million.
While it would provoke an illicit thrill to discover that frenzied super-collectors were slyly puncturing rivals’ tyres or keying priceless bodywork—skulduggery has plagued other pageants, from dog show Crufts (canine poisoning) to Miss World (rigging allegations)—the entrants are, in keeping with the show’s refined, English-garden-party profile—a gentlemanly bunch. To a point. “They like meeting up, the community that’s here, but they do get competitive,” says Mark Ussher, the Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance managing director, and on-the-ground organiser. “They care about their cars but they’re investors as well as collectors. If they win a concours anywhere around the world it adds value to the car.”
Which makes it doubly important that, surrounded by all that deep Harbour water, everyone remembers to put their handbrake on.
The Sydney Harbour Concours D’Elegance runs from February 28th-March 2nd 2025; sydneyharbourconcours.com.au
You may also like.
Jannik Sinner Is the First Tennis Player to Take a Luxury Bag Onto Wimbledon’s Centre Court
The 23-year-old Italian flaunted a custom Gucci duffle bag on center court.
Jannik Sinner aced the style game at last year’s Wimbledon Championships.
The Italian tennis star turned up to his match against Juan Manuel Cerundolo with a custom Gucci duffel bag on his shoulder. It marks the first time a designer bag has been carried onto centre court in the history of the prestigious, centuries-old tennis tournament, as reported by Women’s Wear Daily.
The duffel, which Sinner describes as a “timeless classic,” showcases the house’s signature beige and ebony colorway, the iconic GG monogram, and a contrasting green and red web stripe. It also features the athlete’s initials near the straps. Ironically, the rather traditional design has called into question a 150-year tradition.
“For sure this will create a conversation,” Sinner told WWD before defeating Cerundolo in straight sets. “Bringing sport and luxury fashion together in this way is something that’s never been done before and I feel extremely proud to be a part of it. I hope people will love it as much as I do.”
Wimbledon’s dress code is extremely strict: Players have been required to wear white at the event since 1877, with not even off-white or cream permitted on the court. Tennis whites were originally instated as it was believed the ensemble showed less sweat, as reported by Time. The tradition has continued out of respect for the sport’s history and a desire to maintain formality.
The rules are enforced, too: Our own player Nick Kyrgios was allegedly fined $25,000 for rocking red Air Jordan trainers at 2023’s tournament. Interestingly, the decidedly non-white Gucci accessory was reportedly given the all-clear by the powers that be. A spokesperson for Gucci told WWD the house worked with Sinner’s team “for the approvals from the ITF (International Tennis Federation), ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals), and Grand Slams, including Wimbledon, to ensure the bag met the necessary requirements.”
The 23-year-old, who turned pro at age 18, became a Gucci ambassador in 2023 in his first luxury fashion endorsement. “Gucci for me represents Italian excellence around the world, excellence which is rooted in tradition as much as in innovation,” Sinner said. “This is the kind of message I am proud to convey when I represent my country wherever I am in the world.”
The Italian player was capture in action last week during his 1st round men’s singles match against Nicolas Jarry (from Chile) on day two of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park with more Gucci gear. Sinner carried a custom duffle bag crafted by HEAD and designed by Gucci to the men’s singles match on day two of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne.
Sinner will play Australian Alex de Minaur tomorrow 22 January at the Australian Open.
You may also like.
We Cherrypicked the Best Elements of Luxury Resorts to Create the Ultimate Fantasy Hotel
Everyone has a favourite hotel—but what if you could create your own? We envision the ultimate place to stay, combining elements of the world’s most noteworthy openings.
Forget fantasy football—what about a heavenly hotel? Imagine you could create one from scratch, cherrypicking the best aspects of the world’s most noteworthy recent openings and reopenings, combined into the perfect, impossible property. That’s what we’ve done, from the best rooftop restaurant for supper to the only beach club where’s it’s truly worth basking in the sun, this is the world’s ultimate hotel. The only thing we can’t arrange: the chance to check in.
FACADE Capella Sydney
Australia
It took seven years to turn this local landmark—the building once housed the departments of education and agriculture—into a luxury hotel. A honey-coloured jewel in a precinct awash with appealing sandstone facades, its crowning glory, literally, is the gleaming, four-storey glass addition that perches atop the structure like an architectural tiara.
SUITES
The Surrey, a Corinthia Hotel
New York City
After a full reimagining by Martin Brudnizki and its new operators, Malta-based Corinthia Hotels, this Upper East Side stalwart’s signature suites now include a quartet inspired by Central Park bridges. Mouldings nod to the structures’ architectural details, while hand-painted sketches inside the grandes armoires evoke the Ramble-adjacent Bow Bridge.
RESTAURANT
Le Rooftop at Royal Mansour Casablanca
Morocco
Relax on the 23rd floor of this Art Deco-inflected skyscraper hotel and you’ll not only enjoy astonishing views over the water and toward the towering Hassan II Mosque, but you’ll also find yourself rubbing elbows with the coolest crowd in the city. Snag a sofa on the terrace before sundown and linger all evening.
LOBBY
Peninsula London
England
Hong Kong’s Peninsula hotels are renowned for their fleet of high-end classic cars—a personal passion of billionaire owner Sir Michael Kadoorie. No wonder he struck a deal with Surrey’s Brooklands Museum for his latest opening in London: not only is the Claude Bosi-operated restaurant named in its honour, but the institution also makes available a rotating selection of outstanding vintage vehicles—most recently, a Bentley Blower and a Napier-Railton—for display in the eatery’s dedicated lobby, close to the Concorde nose installed overhead, sourced from Kadoorie’s personal collection.
BEACH CLUB
Borgo Santandrea
Italy
The dearth of standout beaches is the Amalfi Coast’s dirty secret, so this is a remarkable asset: walk down through the terraced, lemon-tree-filled gardens of this Gio Ponti-inspired hotel bolted to the steep cliffs by Conca dei Marini, and you’ll stumble upon its own beach club attached to the property. The restaurant sits in a renovated boathouse; feel free to snip some herbs from the mismatched pots filled with sage and basil.
SPA
Meritage Resort and Spa
Napa Valley
The naturally formed 2,044 m² Estate Cave, located 12 m underground, was already spectacular—its extensive menu of treatments includes both cave-stone massage and guided breathing and meditation sessions—but the $37 million rehab of this establishment thankfully doubled the size of the adults- only pool in front of Spa Terra.
POOL
One&Only Za’abeel Dubai
UAE
This gravity-defying infinity pool, sitting atop the cantilevered link between the hotel’s two towers, has a clubby vibe, swim-up bars and sunken seating pods—and the fact that it’s Instagram catnip doesn’t hurt either.
Photos by ADRIAN GAUT; BORGO SANTANDREA; PENINSULA LONDON; WILL PRYCE.
You may also like.
Hole In One
The Citizen Kanebridge VHG Golf Open Returns to The Southern Highlands This February.
The third annual Citizen Kanebridge VHG Golf Open Day is happening again this year at Citizen Kanebridge Lodge in the Southern Highlands on Friday, February 21. Players will tee off from 8 am for a day of unrivalled bucolic hospitality in the spirit of friendly competition.
The Open unites forces with the operators of Mount Broughton in Sutton Forrest to stage the popular day, in which teams of four enter to enjoy 18 holes of unadulterated fun.
Players will meet at the clubhouse, where—golf aside—they will be served breakfast, lunch and liquid refreshments throughout the day before heading back to Citizen Kanebridge Lodge for a special dinner, fun awards ceremony and more drinks.
Located just 10 minutes from the Citizen Kanebridge Lodge in Berrima, the stunning Mount Broughton course gives players—male and female, and ranging from amateur to semi professional—the chance to compete in a golf day with plenty of high-jinks and food along with way.
The event is part of the new offering from Citizen Kanebridge, a private membership club based in Sydney. Citizen Kanebridge allows members to have access to the Robb Report Club(RR1) based in the United States of America, Citizen Kanebridge Lodge in the Southern Highlands of NSW, and The Royal Automobile Club of Australia (RACA) in Circular Quay, Sydney.
Members interested in Golf Open Day, may enquire by reaching out to leanne@citizenkanebridge.com.au. For more information on Golf Open day, you can download the information brochure here.
Love golf? jump to our golf connoisseurship package from the Spring 2024 issue of Robb Report ANZ.
