Alfa Romeo 1900 Companion

Alfas Are Red, Jaguars Are Green, Porsches Are Silver

By Renan Uflacker (originally printed in Renault News #95)

Some people say that there are way too many red Alfas. Some other people ask if there is a special reason why Italian racing cars are always red. Is it by chance or creative choice? Obviously there is an appropriate answer to all these questions, but many outlandish theories emerged along the years, particularly within the younger generations and people less acquainted with European cars. "They are red because they seem to go faster", I’ve heard. "Because you can see red easier" or "That’s how Enzo Ferrari wanted it", said others. Some people even relate the Italian car’s red color to the color of the soil of north Tuscany, where most of the Italian automotive industry has been located. I'm not sure what people are thinking when these statements are made, but the true history is more than 100 years old.

The New York Herald was the largest newspaper in the U.S. and called itself "the most largely circulated journal in the world." It was founded by James Gordon Bennett in 1835.

In 1872, James G. Bennett Sr. passed away but his son, James Gordon Bennett Jr., had taken over the operation in 1866. Bennett Jr. was educated in France and, as did many of his class, indulged in the "good life": yachts, opulent private railcars, and lavish mansions. He was the youngest Commodore ever of the New York Yacht Club. He served in the Navy during the Civil War and, in 1866, won the first trans-oceanic boat race.

Alfa Romeo 1900CSS, 1957

Bennett Jr. raised the paper’s profile on the world stage when he financed the 1869 Sir Henry Morton Stanley’s expedition to Africa to find Dr. David Livingstone, whence Stanley uttered the now famous words to Livingstone upon finding him: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Bennett Jr. often scandalized society with his flamboyant and sometimes erratic behavior.

In 1877, he left New York for Paris, after an incident that ended his engagement to New York socialite Caroline May. According to accounts, he arrived late and drunk to a party at the May’s family mansion, then urinated into a fireplace in full view of his hosts and guests.

Settling in Paris in 1887, Bennett Jr. launched the Herald’s European edition and the original New York Herald suffered significantly from his attempts to manage its operation in New York by telegram. Bennett Jr., as a "bon vivant", liked to participate and promote sports events and offer awards.

He was one of the founding members of the Automobile Club of France and, in 1899, decided to establish the Gordon Bennett Cup for automobile races. The race regulations called for a challenge between national teams, each with three cars built in the countries they represented.

The first race was held on June 14th, 1900, on the Paris-Lyon road with the agreement that the winning nation would organize the following year’s event and had the chance to choose the route. France won the first two races with Panhard-Levasseurs, then a British driver with a Napier won, followed by a Mercedes-Benz win on the Dublin circuit. A Frenchman won in the German Taunus mountains circuit. The race came back to France and a mountain route was chosen on the Circuit d’Auvergne, at Clermont-Ferrand for the 1905 race. At that time the international flavor of the competition was as strong as ever and, for the first time, the cars were assigned national colors.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang As the races were between national teams, it lead to the reorganization and standard- ization of national racing colors by Count Eliot Zborowski, father of inter-war racing legend Louis Zborowski of Hingham, England. His most famous vehicle was a Mercedes-Benz conceptualized by him and built by the Bligh Brothers, immortalized by Ian Fleming’s children’s book and movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with Dick Van Dyke and Sally Ann Howes. Count Eliot suggested that each national entrant be allotted a different color. Blue for France, black for Italy, silvery-white for Germany, yellow and black for Austria, green for Britain and red for the United States. France won again, with Thery driving a Richard-Brasier car.

Because no one challenged the French again, they didn’t feel it was their duty to stage a re-match; therefore the Gordon Bennett Trophy era came to an unexpected end, but the national colors remained. The following year there was a change between United States, who took the black color, but switched immediately to white and blue, and Italy got the red (rosso corsa), keeping it to this day.

Ferrari 335 Sport, 1957 in Rosso Corsa
Renault Alpine A110, 1973, Rally Car

By the 1920s and 1930s era of Grand Prix motor racing, the colors were definitely established when blue Bugattis, green Bentleys and red Alfa Romeos dominated many races.

Bugatti 39, 1926 in French Racing Blue
1930 "Blower" Bentley in British Racing Green (BRG)

From the time of the Gordon Bennett Trophy until the late 1960s, before sponsorship liveries came in use, vehicles competing in Formula One, sports car racing, touring car racing and other international auto racing competitions customarily painted their cars in racing colors reflecting the nation of origin of the car or driver. The French Renault Alpine for example utilized the now famous French Racing Blue well into the 1970s.

These were, more often than not, different from the national colors used in other sports in politics or national flags. There are not many known reasons why the colors were assigned or chosen, but there are a couple of interesting stories about that: The British racing green reputedly was a concession to Ireland where the 1903 race was run (racing was illegal on British public roads); the British adopted shamrock green which became known as British racing green, although the winning Napier of 1902 had already worn Olive Green. Britain had to choose a different color to its usual national colors of red, white and blue, as these had already been taken by the US, Germany and France, respectively.

Another interesting choice of colors happened when, due to the weight limit of 750 Kg (1,656 lb) for GP cars introduced in 1934, German Mercedes-Benz racing manager Alfred Neubauer decided to scrap the traditional white paint of his cars in order to save one kilogram of weight since the new Mercedes-Benz W25 recorded 751 Kg, just prior to the 1934 Nurburgring Gran Prix, and used the bare sheets of polished aluminum as external colors, giving rise to the name Silver Arrows (Silberpfeile).
Jaguar D-Type 1966 in British Racing Green

Mercedes Benz W 25 Silver Arrow, June 1934 at the International Eifel
race driven by Manfred von Brauchitsch, after the white paint was
stripped to reduce the weight to the maximum permitted.

When aluminum was replaced by fiberglass materials in the 1960s, some German teams (like Porsche and BMW) returned to white paint. Others German manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz and Audi (Auto Union) used silver paint when they returned to international racing in the 1990s. Silver is still today considered to be the German racing color. Interestingly the black color was never reassigned to any country, although Colin Chapman used black from 1972 to 1986 under the sponsorship of John Player Special (Imperial Tobacco), making the black and gold colors of the Lotus 77 one of the most well recognizable liveries to this day.

The whole national color scheme thing came to an end when, under pressure from a number of teams—most famously the Lotus team who wished to use the Gold Leaf livery on the Lotus 49—sponsorship regulations were, in 1968, relaxed in F1.

Jim Clark driving the Lotus 49, still in British Racing Green but with the sponsor’s gold leaf livery.

Mario Andretti’s Lotus 77 with the black-and-gold
John Player Special livery.

In 1970, the FIA formally gave Formula One an exemption from the national colors ruling and the previously-common British green color soon disappeared from the British cars, being replaced by various sponsor liveries. This exemption has since been extended to all race series, unless specific regulations require the adoption of national colors.

Although the color scheme was abandoned by the FIA, it is still informally used, especially by Italian, British and German automakers and teams that want to emphasize their traditions. Often, sponsorship agreements respect this. Many concept cars follow the color scheme, and many amateur racers prefer them as well.

I guess we can conclude that Alfas and Ferraris are red because they are fast!